BV  4205  . E96  v.44 
Selbie ,  W.  B.  1862-1944. 

Aspects  of  Christ 


ASPECTS  OF  CHRIST 


THE  EXPOSITOR’S  LIBRARY 

First  50  Volumes.  Cloth,  2/-  net  each 


The  New  Evangelism 

Prof.  Henry  Drummond,  F.R.S.E. 
Fellowship  with  Christ 

Rev.  R.  W.  Dale,  D.D.,  LL.D. 
The  Jewish  Temple  and  the  Chris¬ 
tian  Church 

Rev.  R.  W.  Dale,  D.D.,  LL.D. 
The  Ten  Commandments 

Rev.  R.  W.  Dale,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

The  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians 

Rev.  R.  W.  Dale,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

The  Epistle  of  James 

Rev.  R.  W.  Dale,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

A  Guide  to  Preachers 

Rev.  Prin.  A.  E.  Garvie,  M.A.,  D.D. 
Modern  Substitutes  for  Christian¬ 
ity  Rev.  P.  McAdam  Muir,  d.d. 
Ephesian  Studies 

Rt.  Rev.  Handley  C.  G.  Moule,  D.D. 
Philippian  Studies 

Rt.  Rev.  Handley  C.  G.  Moule,  D.D. 
Colossian  Studies 

Rt.  Rev.  Handley  C.  G.  Moule,  D.D. 
Christ  is  All 

Rt.  Rev.  Handley  C.  G.  Moule,  D.D. 

The  Life  of  the  Master 

Rev.  John  Watson,  D.D. 

The  Mind  of  the  Master 

Rev.  John  Watson,  D.D. 

Heroes  and  Martyrs  of  Faith 

Professor  A.  S.  Peake,  D.D. 
The  Teaching  of  Jesus  Concerning 
Himself 

Rev.  Prof.  James  Stalker,  M.A.,  D.D. 
Studies  of  the  Portrait  of  Christ 
Vol.  I.  Rev.  George  Matheson,  D.D. 
Studies  of  the  Portrait  of  Christ 
Vol.  II.  Rev.  George  Matheson,  D.D. 

The  Fact  of  Christ 

Rev.  P.  Carnegie  Simpson,  D.D. 

The  Cross  in  Modern  Life 

Rev.  J.  G.  Greenhough,  M.A. 

The  Unchanging  Christ 

Rev.  Alex.  McLaren,  D.D.,  D.LITT. 
The  God  of  the  Amen 

Rev.  Alex.  McLaren,  D.D.,  D.LITT. 
The  Ascent  through  Christ 

Rev.  Principal  E.  Griffith  Jones,  B.A. 
Studies  on  the  Old  Testament 

Professor  F.  Godet,  D.D. 
Studies  on  the  New  Testament 

Professor  F.  Godet,  D.D. 
Studies  on  St.  Paul’s  Epistles 

Professor  F.  Godet,  D.D. 

OTHER  VOLUMES 


Christianity  in  the  Modern  World 
Rev.  D.  S.  Cairns,  m.a. 
Israel’s  Iron  Age 

Rev.  Marcus  Dods,  D.D. 

The  City  of  God 

Rev.  A.  M.  Fairbairn,  M.A.,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

Christ’s  Service  of  Love 

Rev.  Prof.  Hugh  Black,  M.A.,  D.D. 

Humanity  and  God 

Rev.  Samuel  Chadwick. 

The  Work  of  Christ 

Rev.  Principal  P.  T.  Forsyth,  D.D. 

Sidelights  from  Patmos 

Rev.  George  Matheson,  D.D. 

The  Teaching  of  Jesus 

N  Rev.  George  Jackson,  B.A. 

The  Miracles  of  Our  Lord 

Rev.  Professor  John  Laidlaw,  d.d. 

The  Creation  Story  in  the  Light  of 
To-Day  Rev.  Charles  Wenyon,  m.d. 

Half  Hours  in  God’s  Picture  Gallery 
Rev.  J.  G.  Greenhough,  m.a. 

Via  Sacra  Rev.  T.  H.  Darlow. 

The  Trial  and  Death  of  Jesus  Christ 
Rev.  Prof.  James  Stalker,  m.a.,  d.d. 

Aspects  of  Christ 

Rev.  Principal  W.  B.  Selbie,  M.A. 

The  Resurrection  of  Christ 

Rev.  Professor  James  Orr,  m.a.,  D.D. 

The  Doctrines  of  Grace 

Rev.  John  Watson,  M.A.,  D.D. 

Cardinal  Virtues 

Rev.  Canon  W.  C.  E.  Newbolt,  M.A. 

Speaking  Good  of  His  Name 

Ven.  Archdeacon  Wilberforce,  D.D. 

Living  Theology  Archbishop  Benson. 
Heritage  of  the  Spirit 

Bishop  Mandell  Creighton. 

The  Knowledge  of  God 

Bishop  Walsham  How. 

A  Devotional  Commentary  on  St. 
Paul's  Epistles  to  the  Colos- 
sians  and  Thessalonians 

Joseph  Parker,  D.D. 

A  Devotional  Commentary  on  St. 
Paul’s  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians 
Joseph  Parker,  d.d. 

Bible  Studies  in  Living  Subjects 

Rev.  Ambrose  Shepherd,  D.D. 

IN  PREPARATION 


LONDON  :  HODDER  AND  STOUGHTON. 


THE  EXPOSITOR’S  LIBRARY 


ASPECTS  OF  CHRIST 


W.  B.  SELBIE,  M.A. 


( Principal  of  Mansfield  College ,  Oxford) 


HODDER  AND  STOUGHTON 
LONDON  NEW  YORK  TORONTO 


Printed  by  Hazell,  Watson  &■  Viney ,  Ld.  London  and  Aylesbury 


Dedication 


♦ 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DEDICATED  TO  THE  CONGREGATION 
WORSHIPPING  AT  EMMANUEL  CHURCH,  CAMBRIDGE 


IN  GRATEFUL  REMEMBRANCE 


PREFACE 

CJIHE  greater  part  of  this  book  consists  of 
a  series  of  addresses  delivered  at  Em¬ 
manuel  Congregational  Church,  Cambridge, 
on  Sunday  evenings.  They  were  intended 
not  for  scholars,  but  lor  average  Christian 
people,  and  they  show  all  the  limitations 
that  belong  to  the  spoken  word.  The 
subject  with  which  they  deal  is  one  of 
pai  amount  importance  to  the  Christian. 
Church,  and  has  recently  come  into  special 
prominence  in  the  form  of  the  question, 
Jesus  or  Christ  ?  This  must  be  the  writer’s 
excuse  for  appealing  to  a  wider  circle,  in 
the  hope  that  he  may  be  able  to  contribute 
something  for  the  guidance  of  those  who 
are  unable  to  study  the  subject  at  first 


Vll 


PREFACE 


•  •  • 
vm 

hand.  He  makes  no  claim  to  original  treat¬ 
ment  of  the  question  at  issue,  and  he  has 
to  acknowledge  obligations  to  many  scholars 
to  whose  writings  reference  is  made.  He 
has  also  to  thank  his  colleague  Dr.  Vernon 
Bartlet  for  his  kindness  in  reading  the  proofs 
and  for  some  valuable  suggestions. 

The  Introduction  appeared  as  an  article 
in  The  Contemporary  Review ,  and  is  repro¬ 
duced  here  by  kind  permission  of  the 
editor,  Sir  Percy  Bunting.  The  Conclusion 
contains  the  substance  of  papers  read  be¬ 
fore  the  Congregational  Union  of  England 
and  Wales  and  the  National  Free  Church 
Council. 


CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION 

PAGE 

Historic  Fact  and  Christian  Doctrine  ,  .  3 


CHAPTER  I 

The  Christ  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels  .  .  .39 

CHAPTER  II 

The  Christ  of  St.  Paul . 69 


CHAPTER  III 

The  Christ  of  St.  John . 95 

CHAPTER  IV 

The  Christ  of  the  Apocalypse  .  .  .  .121 


ix 


b 


X 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  V 

The  Teaching  of  Chrtst  about  PIimself 


CHAPTER  VI 

The  Christ  of  the  Creeds 


CHAPTER  VII 

The  Christ  of  the  Reformation  . 


CHAPTER  VIII 

The  Christ  of  To-day 


CONCLUSION 

The  Churches  and  the  Faith 


PAGB 

145 


169 


199 


225 


251 


INDEX  . 


277 


INTRODUCTION 

HISTORIC  FACT  AND  CHRISTIAN 

DOCTRINE 


1 


INTRODUCTION 


HISTORIC  FACT  AND  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 

/CHRISTIANITY  is  a  historical  religion. 

It  arose  at  a  certain  period  in  time, 
and  as  the  outcome  of  certain  definite 
events.  It  has  a  historical  Person  as  the 
centre  of  its  thought  and  devotion.  Christian 
theology  is  the  interpretation  of  this  Person 
— the  attempt  to  relate  Him  to  our  idea  of 
God  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  human  life 
and  conduct  on  the  other.  It  is  obvious, 
therefore,  that  this  process  of  interpretation 
must  be  profoundly  modified  by  the  view 
we  take  of  history.  When  the  world  was 
young  and  men  naive  and  simple  in  their 
ideas,  facts  were  facts,  and  the  acceptance 
and  explanation  of  them  presented  no 
difficulty.  Credulity  was  a  virtue.  But 
in  these  latter  days,  when  more  critical 


3 


4 


HISTORIC  FACT  AND 


and  philosophical  conceptions  of  history 
are  in  vogue,  when  the  idea  of  development 
dominates  every  department  of  thought, 
and  environment  is  a  factor  to  be  taken 
into  account,  the  position  is  very  different. 
It  may  be  that  the  facts  themselves  remain 
unchanged,  but  the  point  of  view  from 
which  we  approach  them  is  by  no  means 
what  it  was,  and  with  the  changed  stand¬ 
point  come  a  changed  estimate  and 
mentality.  So  we  have  to  reckon  with  a 
more  hesitating  emphasis  on  the  historical 
groundwork  of  our  faith.  Though  Christian 
doctrine  must  always  be  the  result  of 
reflection  on  the  Christian  history,  there  is 
a  widespread  tendency  to  draw  distinctions 
between  them,  and  to  substitute,  say,  a 
Christ  of  doctrinal  development,  or  philo¬ 
sophical  reflection,  or  experimental  utility 
for  the  Jesus  of  history  or  of  flesh  and 
blood.  We  are  invited  to  turn  our  attention 
to  the  living  Christ  and  to  fix  our  gaze 
exclusively  on  Him.  He  is  represented  as 
a  spiritual  force  operative  for  and  discover- 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


5 


able  by  the  men  of  to-day.  He  is  regarded, 
more  or  less  unconsciously,  as  in  contrast 
to  a  dead  Christ  of  history,  and  we  are 
invited  to  believe  that  even  though  we 
may  not  have  known  Him  after  the  flesh, 
there  is  yet  a  knowledge  of  Him  after  the 
spirit  available  and  sufficient.  Now,  no 
doubt,  there  lies  behind  this  position  a 
very  profound  truth.  It  is  a  commonplace 
in  these  days  that  religion  is  a  life  and 
not  a  creed.  Its  vitality  depends  on  present 
experience  and  not  on  memories  of  the 
past.  Without  such  experience  it  is  apt 
to  drift  into  a  condition  of  unreality,  in 
which  it  ceases  to  be  or  to  be  effective. 
But  experience  itself  must  be  of  something. 
It  must  have  its  foundation  in  fact.  Other¬ 
wise  it  remains  suspended  in  mid-air,  and 
there  is  no  guarantee  of  its  uniformity  or 
permanence.  The  tendency  to  divorce 
religious  experience  and  thought  from  fact 
and  history  is  one  that  has  to  be  .combated 
at  every  point. 

Like  all  processes  of  the  human  mind. 


6 


HISTORIC  FACT  AND 


this  tendency  itself  has  a  history.  It  is 
due  to  the  spirit  of  the  time  and  to  the 
expression  which  this  spirit  has  received 
in  modern  theology.  In  one  aspect  of  it 
it  is  a  form  of  mysticism,  while  in  others 
it  takes  to  itself  shapes  which  mystics 
would  be  the  first  to  repudiate.  With  the 
rise  of  a  scientific  historical  method  arose 
also  a  new  conception  of  the  difficulty  of 
arriving  at  historical  certitude.  Facts  them¬ 
selves  were  seen  to  be  elusive  in  the  sense 
that  it  was  not  always  possible  in  history 
to  distinguish  between  facts  and  the  fancies 
of  those  who  recorded  them.  This  led  to 
the  desire  to  find  some  more  secure  founda¬ 
tion  for  religion.  The  question  emerged  as 
early  as  the  eighteenth  century,  though  in 
a  form  and  for  reasons  widely  differing 
from  those  prevalent  in  more  recent  times. 
The  objection  to  history  as  a  possible 
basis  for  religious  doctrine  was  then  purely 
philosophical.  It  was  not  the  difficulty  of 
obtaining  historical  certitude  that  occupied 
men’s  minds,  but  the  undesirability,  or 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


7 


even  the  impossibility,  of  finding  a  founda¬ 
tion  for  the  eternal  truths  of  religion  in 
the  more  or  less  accidental  phenomena  of 
time.  To  Lessing,  Kant,  and  Fichte  the 
historical  element  in  Christianity  was  purely 
accidental,  and  could  only  be  held  to 
represent  religious  truth  in  a  symbolical 
fashion.  History  may  exemplify  ideas,  but 
it  is  the  ideas,  we  are  told,  that  are  im¬ 
portant,  and  not  the  form  in  which  they 
become  manifest  to  the  mind.  The  form 
is  always  accidental.  On  these  terms  Christ¬ 
ianity  tends  to  become  a  metaphysical 
philosophy,  and  is  easily  divorced  from 
fact.  Scripture  history  becomes  but  a 
sensuous  representation  of  religious  truth. 
The  growth  of  historical  criticism  and  the 
application  of  the  historical  method  to  the 
Christian  documents  brought  up  a  fresh 
justification  for  this  plea.  The  basis  of 
Christian  doctrine  was  believed  to  be  not 
only  philosophically  unsound,  but  histori¬ 
cally  doubtful.  Those  who  believe  with 
Harnack  that  “  the  tradition  as  to  the 


8 


HISTORIC  FACT  AND 


incidents  attending  the  birth  and  early 
life  of  Jesus  Christ  has  been  shattered  ” 
are  compelled  to  find  some  jiew  groundwork 
for  their  belief  in  Christ  and  for  their 
doctrine  concerning  Him.  Hence  the  familiar 
apologetics  of  Ritschl  and  his  school.  The 
aim  of  these  writers  is  to  find  a  justifica¬ 
tion  for  Christian  belief  which  shall  be 
independent  of  historical  criticism  on  the 
one  hand  and  of  metaphysic  on  the  other. 
In  order  to  accomplish  this  they  draw  a 
clear  distinction  between  the  theoretic 
knowledge  that  has  to  do  with  facts  and 
the  religious  knowledge  that  has  to  do 
with  judgments.  They  believe  in  the 
“  historic  Christ,”  and  they  assert  His 
divinity,  but  both  belief  and  assertion  are 
held  to  be  independent  of  criticism  on  the 
one  hand  and  of  any  philosophic  inter¬ 
pretation  of  the  Person  on  the  other.  They 
lay  stress  on  the  ethical  content  of  the 
life  of  Jesus  as  over  against  its  historical 
form.  But  their  “  historic  Christ  ”  is  not 
really  independent  of  criticism.  Rather  He 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


9 


is  the  Christ  who  is  left  to  them  as  the 
result  of  a  criticism  with  an  anti-super- 
naturalistic  bias.  And  their  independence 
of  metaphysic  confines  them  to  a  religious 
knowledge  derived  from  faith  and  experience 
alone.  Their  Christ  is  divine  only  in  the 
sense  that  He  has  a  certain  religious  value 
for  the  believer.  In  other  words,  their 
interpretation  of  the  Christian  facts  is  sub¬ 
ordinated  to  a  materialistic  philosophy  and 
to  a  naturalistic  critical  process.  This  school 
has  done  good  service  by  insisting  on  the 
importance  of  value  judgments  in  religion, 
and  of  experience  in  the  interpretation 
and  construction  of  Christian  doctrine,  but 
its  method  is  a  dangerous  one  throughout. 

Its  principles  have  been  carried  some  way 
further  by  modern  Romanist  writers  like 
Fathers  Loisy  and  Tyrrell.  These  frankly 
abandon  the  historic  basis  of  Christianity 
in  the  New  Testament.  Criticism  is  by 
them  allowed  to  have  its  perfect  work,  with 
the  result  that  the  Gospels  are  entirely  dis¬ 
credited  as  historical  material.  They  then 


10 


HISTORIC  FACT  AND 


proceed  to  44  put  the  ark  of  God  somewhere 
where  the  Philistines  cannot  get  at  it,”  and 
by  a  skilful  use  of  the  doctrine  of  develop¬ 
ment  justify  a  complete  acceptance  of  medi¬ 
aeval  dogma.  Regarding  Christianity  as  a 
living  organism,  they  believe  that  it  can 
best  be  studied  and  understood  in  its  later 
and  completer  stages.  The  earlier  stage, 
which  consists  of  a  record  of  events  which 
may  or  may  not  have  44  gone  through  the 
form  of  taking  place,”  belongs  to  the  world 
of  appearance  which  is  irrelevant  to  Faith. 
As  Loisy  says,  44  Historical  researches  only 
tend  to  prove  and  represent  facts ,  which 
cannot  be  in  contradiction  with  any  dogmas 
precisely  because  they  are  facts,  while  dogmas 
are  representative  ideas  of  faith.”  It  is 
easy  to  see  the  attractiveness  of  this  position 
for  many  minds  in  the  present  distress, 
but  a  very  little  reflection  should  be  sufficient 
to  show  the  extremely  uncertain  nature  of 
the  foundation  it  offers  for  faith  and  life. 

We  must  not,  however,  overlook  the  fact 

f 

that  there  are  certain  tendencies  of  modern 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


11 


thought  which  go  far  to  popularise  this  con¬ 
ception  of  a  Christianity  divorced  from 
history.  The  more  important  among  these 
are,  first,  the  application  of  the  theory  of 
development  to  Christian  doctrine ;  and, 
second,  the  influence  of  the  new  philosophy 
which  goes  by  the  name  of  pragmatism. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  idea  of 
development  is  inherent  in  Christian  teach¬ 
ing  from  the  first.  It  was  no  part  of  the 
purpose  of  Jesus  Christ  when  here  on  earth 
to  leave  with  His  followers  a  complete  body 
of  Christian  doctrine  or  a  fully  organised 
Church.  In  His  own  mouth  His  teaching 
was  no  more  than  a  seed  which  was  intended 
to  germinate  and  to  grow,  or  leaven  which 
was  to  work  its  way  gradually  through  the 
whole  lump.  He  was  Himself  the  core  of 
His  teaching,  and  He  likened  His  own  life 
to  a  corn  of  wheat  which  must  fall  into  the 
ground  and  die  before  it  could  bring  forth 
fruit.  It  was  this  capacity  for  growth  and 
adaptation  which  constituted  the  uniqueness 
of  the  work  of  Jesus  Christ  and  gave  to  it 


12  HISTORIC  FACT  AND 

its  power.  But  if  we  are  to  apply  to  this 
process  of  growth  the  concept  of  develop¬ 
ment,  we  must  do  so  intelligently  and  con¬ 
sistently.  Development  must  mean  here 
what  it  means  everywhere  else.  If  it  implies 
continuous  growth  from  earlier  and  simpler 
to  later  and  more  complex  forms,  according 
to  fixed  laws  and  by  means  of  resident 
forces,  then  we  must  regard  the  earlier  forms 
and  stages  as  being  at  least  as  important  as 
the  later  and  as  containing  within  them  the 
potentiality  of  all  that  was  to  be.  It  may 
be  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Person  of  Christ 
in  the  Church  to-day  presents  features  which 
are  not  explicitly  found  in  the  Gospel 
history  ;  but  if  they  are  to  be  regarded  as 
a  legitimate  development,  they  must  at 
least  be  implicit  in  the  facts  which  that 
history  records.  Indeed,  any  fair  reading  of 
Christian  doctrine  in  the  light  of  evolu¬ 
tion  increases  rather  than  diminishes  the 
importance  of  the  historical  records.  In 
these  we  have  given  the  historical  data 
whose  development  we  have  to  study,  the 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


13 


organism  whose  growth  we  have  to  investi¬ 
gate.  If  the  Christ  of  dogma  is  so  far  re¬ 
moved  from  the  Christ  of  the  Gospels  that  no 
sort  of  likeness  between  them  can  be  found, 
then  the  study  of  the  process  of  develop¬ 
ment  should  show  us  howT  the  divergence  has 
arisen  and  should  enable  us  to  judge  whether 
it  is  ideally  or  historically  legitimate  or  not. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  the  portrait  of  Christ 
in  the  Gospels  is  judged  to  be  wholly  un- 
historical,  no  doctrine  of  Christ  developed 
from  it  can  have  any  vital  significance 
either  for  reason  or  for  faith.  A  myth  does 
not  develop  into  a  reality.  The  bigger  it 
grows  the  more  mythical  it  becomes.  What¬ 
ever  is  implicit  in  the  germ  must  become 
explicit  in  the  finished  organism. 

But  it  must  be  freely  recognised  that  other 
factors  come  into  play  in  the  developmental 
process  besides  the  forces  and  characteristics 
resident  within  the  primitive  organism.  En¬ 
vironment  must  be  taken  into  account,  and 
in  the  development  of  thought  environment 
has  a  great  part  to  play.  It  is  very  neces- 


14 


HISTORIC  FACT  AND 


sary  to  understand  the  conception  of  the 
historical  facts  of  Christianity  which  was 
entertained  by  those  writers  who  contributed 
most  powerfully  to  the  growth  of  Christian 
doctrine.  But  it  is  equally  necessary  that 
we  should  understand  the  intellectual  and 
religious  equipment  which  these  writers 
brought  to  their  task.  They  were  them¬ 
selves  often  the  product  of  their  environ¬ 
ment,  and,  more  or  less  unconsciously,  they 
altered  the  truth  as  it  was  in  Jesus  when 
they  tried  to  give  expression  to  it  for  their 
own  day.  Much  of  their  work,  too,  was 
polemical  in  intention,  and  this  involved  a 
bias  which  must  be  taken  into  account  in 
estimating  it.  It  is  much  to  be  desired  also 
that  those  who  study  doctrinal  development 
would  follow  the  example  of  Edwin  Hatch 
and  give  full  weight  to  those  pagan  and  other 
alien  influences  which  came  so  strongly  into 
play  during  the  first  four  centuries  of  the 
Christian  era.  These  are  equally  important, 
whether  we  regard  Christianity  as  an  ideal¬ 
istic  philosophy  or  as  an  historic  creed.  In 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


15 


this  connection,  however,  it  is  well  to  bear 
in  mind  the  warnings  to  which  Harnack  has 
given  utterance  :  “A  man  must  be  in¬ 
fatuated  to  maintain  that,  because  all  history 
is  a  history  of  development,  it  can  and  must 
be  described  as  a  process  of  material  or 
mechanical  change.”  “  In  the  history  of 
intellectual  and  moral  ideas,  the  rough-and- 
ready  way  of  explaining  cause  by  environ¬ 
ment  alone  breaks  down  altogether.” 

Once  more,  the  idea  that  Christian  doctrine 
may  be  independent  of  historical  fact  is 
undoubtedly  fostered  by  the  prevalence  of 
a  pragmatic  philosophy.  There  is  a  super¬ 
ficial  attraction  about  a  philosophical  system 
which  recognises  the  difficulties  which  beset 
every  theory  of  cognition,  which  subordin¬ 
ates  the  intelligence  to  the  will,  and  judges 
religion  not  by  the  truth  of  its  teaching,  but 
by  its  effects  on  life  and  in  experience. 
When  Professor  James  asserts  that  “  the 
only  meaning  of  truth  is  the  possibility 
of  verification  by  experience,”  and  that 
“  true  is  the  term  applied  to  whatever  it 


16 


HISTORIC  FACT  AND 


is  practically  profitable  to  believe,”  he  is 
laying  down  propositions  which  strongly 
appeal  to  an  age  that  loves  to  consider 
itself  above  all  things  practical.  And  there 
is  no  doubt  that  modern  psychology  is  right 
in  insisting  that  experience  must  be  given 
a  very  important  place  among  the  criteria 
of  religious  truth.  Theories,  religious  as 
well  as  scientific,  are  at  first  generally  of  the 
nature  of  hypotheses,  and  the  test  of  an 
hypothesis  is,  will  it  work  ?  But  to  make 
this  the  exclusive  and  universal  test  of 
knowledge  involves  a  kind  of  scepticism, 
the  effect  of  which  is  to  make  theology  im¬ 
possible.  There  is  truth  in  Professor  Carveth 
Read’s  description  of  pragmatism  as  “a 
kind  of  scepticism,  as  any  doctrine  must 
be  that  puts  the  conviction  of  reason  solely 
upon  any  other  ground  than  cognition, 
whether  it  be  action  or  feeling.”  But  even 
granting  the  admissibility  of  this  new  philo¬ 
sophical  method,  there  is  nothing  in  it  to 
justify  the  neglect  of  historic  fact  as  the 
basis  of  religious  ideas.  In  the  case  of 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  17 

Christianity,  it  is  history  which  gives  the 
data  of  experience.  Apart  from  the  records 
of  the  life  and  teaching  of  Jesus  Christ,  no 
real  experience  of  His  power  is  possible. 
And  to  say  that  this  experience  remains  the 
same,  equally  valid  and  equally  fruitful, 
whether  the  records  be  historically  true  or 
whether  they  be  merely  myth  and  the 
product  of  imagination,  is  to  say  what  no 
careful  student  of  human  nature  would  be 
willing  to  endorse.  Whatever  may  be  the 
case  with  philosophers,  the  average  man  is 
not  easily  persuaded  to  divorce  his  ideas 
from  what  he  considers  to  be  facts.  If  his 
religion  is  to  supply  him  with  sanctions  for 
conduct  and  to  be  judged  accordingly,  he 
can  hardly  be  blamed  if  he  seeks  for  it  some 
basis  in  reality  and  some  foundation  stronger 
than  a  myth. 

But  it  is  time  now  to  realise  that  the  root 
of  the  difficulty  that  confronts  us  is  not  to 
be  found  in  any  scientific  or  philosophical 
theories,  but  in  the  historical  criticism  of  the 
early  Christian  documents.  The  results  of 

2 


18  HISTORIC  FACT  AND 

that  criticism  are  now  generally  known  and 
have  brought  about  a  widespread  scepticism 
as  to  the  historicity  of  the  Christian  records. 
Hence  the  desire  to  find  a  basis  for  Christian 
belief  that  shall  be  independent  of  records 
altogether.  But  there  are  other  ways  out 
of  the  impasse  :  criticism  must  be  met  with 
criticism.  The  false  relation  between  doc¬ 
trine  and  fact,  which  has  too  often  been 
maintained,  must  be  replaced  by  one  which 
allows  a  wider  latitude.  For  instance,  it 
has  sometimes  been  urged  that  the  doctrine 
of  the  Incarnation  depends  upon  the  fact  of 
the  birth  of  our  Lord  from  a  Virgin,  or  that 
belief  in  the  living  Christ  is  impossible  apart 
from  belief  in  His  bodily  resurrection.  But 
to  deny  this  dependence  of  doctrine  on  a 
single  isolated  fact  is  not  to  deny  that  historic 
fact  is  no  necessary  basis  for  doctrine.  It  is 
merely  to  assume  the  obvious  necessity  of 
discriminating  among  the  facts  given,  and 
of  broadening  the  basis  on  which  doctrine 
is  built.  It  would  not  even  be  true  to  say 
in  so  many  words  that  the  Christian  doctrine 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  19 

of  redemption  is  based  on  the  fact  of  the 
death  of  Jesus  Christ  on  the  cross.  It  is 
not  the  fact  that  Christ  died,  so  much  as  the 
fact  that  it  was  Christ  who  died,  that  is 
important  for  the  formulation  of  doctrine. 

The  force  at  the  back  of  Christianity  is  the 

%/ 

Person  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  our  belief  in  the 
Person  is  not  necessarily  conditioned  by  the 
accuracy,  or  otherwise,  of  the  reports  we 
have  received  about  incidents  in  His  career. 
So  historical  testimony  to  the  truth  of  the 
Christian  origins  does  not  depend  on  the 
degree  in  which  we  can  authenticate  every 
statement  made  in  the  Gospels,  still  less  on 
our  power  of  identifying  the  writers  of  the 
Gospels.  We  have  to  see  with  their  eyes 
and  to  judge  as  best  we  can  of  the  veri¬ 
similitude  of  the  picture  which  they  draw. 
We  are  deeply  concerned  with  the  impres¬ 
sion  which  Jesus  Christ  made  upon  them 
because  of  the  presuppositions  which  that 
impression  involves,  and  which  emerged 
when  they  attempted  to  describe  it.  But 
because  those  presuppositions  present  to  us 


20  HISTORIC  FACT  AND 

certain  metaphysical  difficulties,  we  must 
not  allow  these  to  affect  our  judgment  of  the 
apostolic  testimony. 

It  is  too  easily  assumed  that  criticism  of 
the  Gospels  is  necessarily  destructive  in  its 
effects  and  that  it  has  left  us  no  secure  foun¬ 
dation  on  which  to  build  a  doctrine  of  the 
Person  of  Jesus  Christ.  A  reaction  against 
the  extreme  conclusions  of  the  critics  is 
already  in  process,  and  saner  and  broader 
views  are  beginning  to  prevail.  Criticism 
itself  has  shown  us  that  it  is  histoiicallv 
impossible  to  explain  away  the  unique  claims 
which  Jesus  Christ  made  and  the  results 
which  followed  directly  from  them.  His 
work  and  teaching  are  embedded  in  the 
history  of  the  first  centuries  of  our  era  in 
such  a  way  that  it  is  impossible  to  eliminate 
them.  It  is  important  that  we  should 
discover  what  the  first  followers  of  Jesus 
thought  about  them,  and  it  is  not  difficult 
to  do  so.  Nor  is  it  unreasonable  to  assume 
that  their  opinions  concerning  Him  origin¬ 
ated  from  and  were  shaped  by  His  own 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  21 

words  and  actions,  as  they  understood  them. 
Their  understanding  may  have  been  faulty, 
but  that  it  had  no  sort  of  foundation  in  fact 
no  sane  person  is  likely  to  believe.  Here, 
then,  at  the  very  beginning,  Christian  fact 
and  doctrine  come  into  the  closest  possible 
relations.  There  must  have  been  certain 
facts  given  to  start  the  process  of  reflection. 
Something  happened,  and  something  which 
was  a  sufficient  basis  for  doctrine.  How 
easy  it  is,  however,  for  doctrine  to  become 
dissociated  from  fact  the  history  of  Christian 
thought  during  the  first  four  centuries 
abundantly  proves.  We  can  trace  without 
any  difficulty  the  process  by  which  the  his¬ 
toric  Jesus  became  the  unhistorical  Christ 
of  fourth-century  philosophical  speculation. 
We  have  here  not  a  natural  development 
from  the  historical  data,  but  the  result  of 
speculation  in  which  the  history  has  been 
largely  overlooked,  or  perverted  for  dog¬ 
matic  or  polemical  purposes.  A  familiar 
illustration  of  the  process  is  often  found  in 
the  changes  which  came  over  the  presenta- 


22  HISTORIC  FACT  AND 

tion  of  Jesus  Christ  in  art.  The  devotion 
of  His  earlier  followers  was  none  the  less 
that  they  pictured  Him  to  themselves  simply 
as  a  young  man  of  like  form  and  fashion  with 
themselves.  But  in  the  course  of  time  the 
halo  appeared  round  His  brow,  and  He  was 
presented  to  the  gaze  of  His  followers  either 
in  a  form  glorified  and  far  removed  from 
any  vestige  of  humanity  or  else  as  an  agon¬ 
ised  and  perpetually  crucified  martyr.  This 
transformation  was  the  sign  of  a  correspond¬ 
ing  change  in  thought  and  belief,  which  Dr. 
Rashdall  has  well  described  in  the  following 
terms :  “It  can  hardly  be  seriously  denied 
that  the  picture  which  the  fourth  century 
formed  to  itself  of  the  nature  of  Christ’s 
personality  was  an  unhistorical  picture. 
More  and  more  as  the  historic  environment 
of  Christ’s  early  life  receded  into  the  back¬ 
ground,  the  key  was  lost  to  much  in  Christ’s 
teaching  which,  with  our  richer  historical 
knowledge  and  our  developed  instinct  of 
historical  reconstruction,  we  may  now  hope 
to  understand.  The  historic  Christ  more 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


23 


and  more  disappeared  from  men’s  view,  and 
was  superseded  by  a  metaphysical  Christ, 
whose  humanity  was  indeed  acknowledged  in 
word,  but  who  lacked  all  the  attributes  of  the 
humanity  which  we  know.”  1 

It  has  been  among  the  chief  tasks  of 
modern  scholarship  to  recover  this  lost 
Christ  of  history.  And  it  is  the  fact  that 
the  Christ  so  recovered  is  very  different  from 
the  Christ  of  ecclesiastical  dogma  that  has  led 
many  minds  to  disparage,  if  not  to  discredit, 
both  the  historical  process  and  its  result. 
It  is  quite  true  that  the  New  Testament 
records  give  us  not  dogma,  but  only  the 
materials  for  dogma.  But  the  material  is 
sufficient  and  is  absolutely  necessary  for  the 
purpose  of  doctrinal  development.  Histori¬ 
cal  criticism  has  had  some  constructive  re¬ 
sults  which  are  not  to  be  overlooked.  It 
has  made  it  for  ever  impossible  to  deny  the 
belief  of  Jesus  Christ  in  His  unique  relation¬ 
ship  to  God  on  the  one  hand  and  to  humanity 
on  the  other.  His  consciousness  of  this  and 


1  Doctrine  and  Development ,  p.  94. 


24 


HISTORIC  FACT  AND 


the  claims  He  founded  upon  it  form  an  in¬ 
tegral  part  of  any  representation  of  Him  that 
pretends  to  be  true  to  the  facts  as  His  first 
followers  understood  them.  They  bring  us 
face  to  face  with  what  is  sometimes  called 
the  problem  of  the  Person  of  Christ,  with  the 
lonely  majesty  and  unique  grandeur  of  His 
moral  and  religious  consciousness.  It  is 
with  the  total  effect  of  this  Personality  that 
the  student  of  history  has  to  do,  rather  than 
with  any  incidents  in  His  career.  In  the 
making  of  history  personality  is  a  force  to 
be  reckoned  with,  and  in  Jesus  Christ  we 
have  a  personality  more  potent  in  its  results, 
both  immediate  and  remote,  than  any  other 
known  to  men.  Regarded  from  this  wider 
standpoint  and  in  this  more  human  aspect 
the  foundation  of  our  faith  stands  firm.  To 
quote  Harnack  once  more  :  44  There  is,” 

he  says,  44  a  difference  between  fact  and  fact. 
The  actual  external  details  are  always  a 
matter  of  controversy,  and  in  this  sense 
Lessing  was  perfectly  right  when  he  warned 
us  against  coupling  matters  of  the  highest 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  25 

moment  with  accidental  truths  of  history  and 
hanging  the  whole  weight  of  eternity  on  a 
spider’s  thread.  But  the  spiritual  purport 
of  a  whole  life,  of  a  personality,  is  also  an 
historical  fact  ;  we  are  certain  of  it  by  the 
effect  which  it  produces  ;  and  it  is  here  that 
we  find  the  link  that  binds  us  to  J esus 
Christ.” 

But  it  is  not  only  in  the  field  of  Christo- 
logy  that  the  importance  of  history  has  to  be 
recognised.  It  is  equally  important  for 
theology  in  the  broader  sense  of  the  term. 
No  doctrine  of  God  can  be  regarded  as  satis¬ 
factory  which  is  the  produce  of  unaided 
imagination  or  of  the  idealising  tendency  of 
the  human  mind.  The  science  of  Biblical 
theology  is  a  standing  refutation  of  any  such 
theory.  There  is  a  history  of  thought  as 
well  as  of  events,  and  the  history  of  Christian 
thought  on  the  Godhead  is  of  the  last  im¬ 
portance  in  regulating  the  doctrinal  recon¬ 
struction  of  modern  times.  The  new  science 
of  comparative  religions  and  the  effect 
which  it  is  producing  well  illustrate  the  point 


26  HISTORIC  FACT  AND 

under  discussion.  There  we  have  an  im¬ 
mense  body  of  ideas  and  phenomena  which 
testify  to  the  depth  of  the  religious  sentiment 
in  man.  Christian  theology  cannot  escape 
the  conclusion  that  we  have  in  these  not 
only  man’s  dim  groping  after  God,  but  also 
God’s  search  after  man.  He  has  spoken 
to  the  fathers  in  divers  portions  and  in  divers 
manners,  to  every  age  in  the  language  that 
it  could  understand,  and  to  every  tribe  in  its 
own  customs  and  in  the  forms  of  its  own 
thought.  The  knowledge  of  this  cannot  but 
profoundly  influence  our  conception  of  God 
in  these  days.  It  throws  new  light  upon 
the  whole  Christian  revelation,  and  gives  us 
a  guide  to  the  Scriptures  without  which  we 
should  often  go  astray.  Students  of  the 
New  -Testament  know  how  much  they  owe 
to  the  interpreters  of  the  history  of  Old 
Testament  religion.  And  the  Old  Testa¬ 
ment  itself  is  a  sealed  book  to  those  who  take 
no  account  of  the  general  history  of  Semitic 
faiths,  while  these  studies  again  broaden  out 
until  they  come  into  close  touch  with  the 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


27 


whole  religious  history  of  mankind.  Here, 
as  on  the  narrower  ground  of  purely  Chris¬ 
tian  theology,  the  historical  background  is 
absolutely  necessary  to  the  dogmatic  process, 
and  whoever  is  content  to  ignore  it  is  but  a 
blind  leader  of  the  blind. 

The  question  still  remains  as  to  the  place 
of  experience  in  the  formulation  of  religious 
truth.  It  is  only  germane  to  the  subject 
because  of  the  tendency  of  certain  modern 
writers  to  make  spiritual  experience  rather 
than  historical  investigation  their  great 
criterion.  The  two,  however,  must  not  be 
separated.  Experience  is  useful  as  a  pro¬ 
cess  of  verification.  By  it  men  give  practical 
effect  to  the  faith  that  is  in  them,  and  are 
enabled  to  discover  its  value  for  life  and 
conduct.  It  helps  them  to  apply  to  their 
belief  the  practical  test,  solvitur  ambulando. 
But  it  does  not  give  them  the  content  of 
their  belief.  Its  data  are  supplied,  and  all 
that  experience  does  is  to  subject  them  to  a 
certain  method  of  proof.  Nor  must  it  be 
forgotten  that  religious  experience  itself  has 


28 


HISTORIC  FACT  AND 


a  history.  The  experience  of  the  individual 
is  only  valuable  as  it  is  part  of  the  collective 
experience  of  the  race  and  as  it  adds  to  the 
volume  of  the  testimony  which  that  wider 
experience  provides.  That  the  experience 
of  the  saints  of  Christendom  says  yea  and 
amen  to  the  spiritual  claim  of  Jesus  Christ 
is  undoubtedly  an  important  fact.  But  it 
loses  all  force  and  meaning  if  it  is  once  dis¬ 
sociated  from  the  history  of  the  life  and 
teaching  of  Jesus.  That  men  studying  this 
life  and  teaching  to-day  find  in  it  the  same 
solace  and  inspiration  as  was  found  by  the 
men  of  the  second  century  a.d.  is  a  striking 
confirmation  of  the  force  of  Christ’s  person¬ 
ality  and  of  the  universal  nature  of  His 
appeal.  But  it  does  not  prove  the  historical 
truth  of  the  records  concerning  Him.  No 
doubt  it  may  be  said  that  the  men  in  whom 
this  experience  has  been  effective  have 
heartily  believed  the  Scriptures  which  origin¬ 
ated  it,  and  that  it  is  very  difficult  to  imagine 
the  birth  of  a  true  Christian  experience  in 
any  man  to  whom  Christ  and  His  teaching 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  29 

are  only  products  of  the  pious  imagination. 
That  may  be  so,  but  the  fact  remains  that 
the  real  value  of  experience  is  for  psychology 
and  not  for  historical  criticism.  The  point 
that  more  nearly  concerns  us  here  is  that  the 
history  of  Christian  religious  experience  be¬ 
comes  largely  unintelligible  without  the  his¬ 
torical  data  on  which  it  rests.  Jesus  Christ 
was  not  merely  a  teacher  like  Plato.  He 
exemplified  His  teaching  in  His  life,  and  the 
power  and  meaning  of  that  life  men  discover 
by  following  the  lines  which  He  laid  down. 

Nevertheless  the  fact  has  to  be  faced  that 
a  dehistoricalised  gospel  is  being  offered  to 
the  world  to-day  as  the  latest  and  necessary 
product  of  scientific  religious  thought.  YY  e 
are  told  that  44  religion  must  withdraw  its 
pretensions  to  be  dealing  with  matters  of 
fact,”  that  Christianity  is  a  religion  of  ex¬ 
perience  born  of  illusions,  and  that  these 
illusions  preserved  44  the  invaluable  treasure 
of  the  Christian  teaching  and  the  figure  of 
the  Teacher.”  We  are  told  even  that  with¬ 
out  the  historical  Jesus  the  Gospels  would 


30 


HISTORIC  FACT  AND 


become  “  more  wonderful  and  more  encourag¬ 
ing  than  before,  for  the  profound  wisdom  and 
lofty  character  found  in  them  would  prove 
to  be  the  expression  not  of  a  single  and  unique 
religion  of  Jesus,  but  of  the  spiritual  ideals 
of  many  humble  and  unknown  men.”  This 
position  is  set  forth  as  the  last  word  of 
modern  apologetics,  and  it  undoubtedly  has 
its  attractions.  But  the  practical  effect  of 
it  is  to  nullify  the  religion  in  the  name  of 
which  it  speaks.  The  great  need  of  religion 
at  the  present  time  is  for  more  and  not  less 
historic  reality.  Nothing  is  gained  by  telling 
us  that  we  have  the  spirit  of  Jesus  even  if  we 
lose  the  historical  Jesus.  To  the  plain  man 
this  means  that  you  have  reduced  his 
religion  to  the  “  baseless  fabric  of  a  dream.” 
It  means  also  the  substitution  for  historical 
reality  of  a  kind  of  spiritual  authority  which 
may  appeal  to  the  philosopher,  but  has  no 
sort  of  influence  with  the  common  people. 
If  in  this  way  Christianity  were  ever  to 
become  a  religion  for  the  learned,  it  would 
entirely  change  its  character  and  lose  the 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


31 


greater  part  of  its  power.  As  Professor 
Shailer  Matthews  has  well  said,  “It  is  easy 
enough  to  forecast  the  effects  of  this  sort  of 
presentation  of  an  unhistorical  Gospel.  If 
once  the  world  becomes  convinced  that 
Jesus  has  no  more  reality  than  His  value  as 
a  working  hypothesis  of  God’s  character,  and 
that  the  Gospels  have  only  a  functional 
worth,  the  Church  as  an  aggressive  spiritual 
force  will  go  out  of  commission.  The  very 
men  who  champion  such  a  view  will  find  it 
difficult  to  do  more  than  reshape  the  religious 
fervour  and  faith  which  belong  to  men  who 
once  lived  assured  of  the  actual  historicity 
of  a  risen  Christ.  The  world  at  large  has 
very  little  use  for  a  myth  or  a  legend  or  an 
illusion,  no  matter  how  it  may  assist  it  to 
function  religiously.  We  may  need  some¬ 
times  to  speculate  as  to  what  would  be  left 
the  world  if  evangelical  theology  were  to  go 
into  bankruptcy  ;  but  it  does  not  become  us 
to  depreciate  its  assets,  much  less  call  for 
a  receiver  of  a  solvent  concern.”  1  In  the  old 

1  The  Church  and  the  Changing  Order,  p.  61. 


32  HISTORIC  FACT  AND 

fable  the  strength  of  Antaeus  lay  in  his 
touch  with  his  mother  Earth.  When  Hercules 
lifted  him  into  the  air  he  overcame  him 
with  ease.  So  the  strength  of  our  Christian 
faith  lies  in  its  touch  with  historic  reality, 
with  what  is  sometimes  called  the  fact  of 
Christ. 

We  must  insist,  therefore,  that  modern 
Christian  teaching  cannot  be  allowed  to 
separate  itself  from  the  evangelic  facts. 
These  facts  have  to  be  investigated  with  all 
the  aids  which  a  scientific  criticism  can 
supply,  and  we  need  not  fear  the  results  of 
the  process.  The  criticism  which  starts  with 
a  bias  against  the  supernatural,  whatever 
else  it  may  be,  is  not  scientific,  and  has 
certainly  no  right  to  an  exclusive  possession 
of  the  field.  But  the  facts  have  not  only 
to  be  examined  but  interpreted,  and  a  dis¬ 
tinction  has  to  be  drawn  between  the  inter¬ 
pretation  given  to  them  by  the  men  of  the 
first  century  and  the  interpretation  which  is 
suited  to  the  mind  of  to-day.  But  if  this 
interpretation  is  to  be  Christian  it  must  still 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


33 


remain  in  vital  and  organic  relation  with 
the  facts.  The  exigencies  of  modern  life 
and  thought  lay  upon  the  Church  as  its  first 
duty  the  necessity  for  a  positive  recon¬ 
struction  of  Christian  doctrine,  or,  in  other 
words,  for  an  intellectual  presentation  of  the 
Gospel  in  terms  intelligible  to  the  men  of 
to-day.  This  task  the  Church  can  only 
accomplish  as  it  remains  loyal  to  the  original 
deposit  of  the  faith.  To  invent  a  philo¬ 
sophical  Christianity  without  any  historical 
background  is  to  preach  another  gospel. 
Theology  will  never  go  very  far  wrong  so 
long  as  it  finds  its  basis  in  the  Bible  and  in 
history.  Apart  from  these,  it  becomes  a  mere 
speculative  system  whose  authority  is  simply 
that  of  its  authors.  It  must  be  remembered 
that 66  a  theology  may  be  liberal  and  scientific 
and  not  be  unevangelical.  The  history  of 
Christian  thought  cannot  be  wholly  a  history 
of  mistakes.  The  fact  that  historical  criti¬ 
cism  and  the  acceptance  of  the  methods  and 
results  of  biological  science  bring  one  back 
with  new  confidence  to  the  heart  of  an  historic 

3 


34 


HISTORIC  FACT  AND 


faith,  though  by  the  road  of  a  somewhat 
radical  methodology,  is  at  once  reassuring 
and  eloquent  as  to  the  future.  There  are 
many  points,  both  in  conclusions  and  in 
method,  at  which  there  will  always  be  honest 
difference  of  opinion,  but  whatever  is  a  fact 
will  finally  be  reached  by  any  legitimate 
investigation.” 

To  sum  up,  the  Christian  religion  possesses 
what  a  mere  philosophical  speculation  lacks 
— the  historic  person  of  Jesus  Christ.  It 
was  the  force  of  this  personality  which  origin¬ 
ated  the  Christian  Church,  and  has  trans¬ 
formed  and  inspired  men  and  women  all 
through  its  history.  The  history  of  the 
Person  is  not  confined  to  the  few  years  that 
Jesus  spent  on  earth,  but  is  spread  over  the 
ages,  and  is  to  be  studied  in  the  results  it  has 
produced.  In  estimating  it  we  must  believe, 
as  Emerson  puts  it,  44  what  the  years  and 
the  centuries  say  against  the  hours.”  Chris¬ 
tian  doctrine  is  the  prolonged  and  varied 
effort  of  the  human  mind  to  explain  the 
Christian  facts  and  to  relate  them  to  the 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


35 


widening  processes  of  thought.  Its  truth 
is  proved  by  the  extent  to  which  it  corre¬ 
sponds  to  the  facts  of  history  and  by  the  life 
for  which  these  facts  supply  the  motive 
power. 


* 


CHAPTER  I 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  SYNOPTIC 

GOSPELS 


CHAPTER  I 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS 


The  beginning  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son 
of  God. — St.  Mark  i.  1. 

rTTHE  Christian  religion  rests  on  history. 

It  is  rooted  and  finds  its  centre  in 
the  person  of  Jesus  Christ.  When  we  speak 
of  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ  we  are  not 
merely  using  a  theological  expression.  We 
mean  the  historical  personality  as  it  once 
existed  at  a  certain  time  and  in  certain 
places,  and  as  it  is  interpreted  in  the  experi¬ 
ence  of  the  Christian  Church  and  of  Christian 
people.  There  are,  as  we  have  already  seen, 
not  a  few  modern  critics  who  tell  us  that 
this  Person,  as  we  know  Him,  is  not  really 
historical.  They  draw  distinctions  between 
the  Jesus  of  history  and  the  Christ  of  faith, 


39 


40 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE 


and  they  urge  that  these  are  two  different 
persons,  or  that  they  represent  two  different 
ideas.  They  draw  distinctions,  again,  be¬ 
tween  the  actual  and  the  ideal  Christ,  and 
they  maintain  that  there  is  little  or  no 
relation  between  them.  The  one  is  lost  in 
the  mists  of  antiquity,  the  other  is  the 
product  of  the  pious  imagination  of 
Christians. 

Now,  in  statements  like  these  we  have 
put  before  us  the  central  problem  of  the 
Christian  life  and  of  Christian  thought  at 
the  present  time.  It  is  quite  true  that 
there  are  many  who  insist  that  we  need  not 
be  troubled  even  if  it  be  discovered  that 
Jesus  Christ  was  never  an  historical  Person  at 
all.  They  say  that  we  may  well  be  content 
with  the  ideal  Christ ;  that  in  Him,  and  in  a 
certain  mental  and  spiritual  relationship  to 
Him,  men  can  find  sufficient  for  faith,  for 
hope,  and  for  life.  They  say  also  that  it 
is  impossible  to  express  in  historical  fact 
eternal  ideas,  and  that  it  is  the  eternal 
ideas  contained  in  the  teaching  and  work 


SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS 


41 


of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  that  are  im¬ 
portant,  and  that  if  we  have  these 
history  does  not  matter,  or  does  not 
matter  much. 

Now,  to  certain  philosophers  of  the  mystic 
type  this  may  be  a  possible  position,  and 
it  cannot  be  denied  that  there  is  a  certain 
importance  in  this  point  of  view ;  but 
for  the  ordinary  man,  for  those  who  want 
to  find  in  their  religion  something  actual 
and  in  their  Christ  something  of  the  real, 
this  position  will  not  suffice.  Nay,  if  it 
is  to  be  insisted  upon,  it  means  the  end  of 
Christianity.  It  is  impossible  to  find  in 
mere  ideas,  still  less  in  ideas  divorced 
from  all  reality  and  actuality,  the  motive 
power,  the  force,  the  passion,  and  the 
sustaining  grace  that  men  and  women  need 
in  this  world  to  lift  them  out  of  the  slough 
of  sin  and  out  of  the  pitiful  weaknesses 
of  the  flesh  to  those  heights  of  self- 
denial  and  aspiration  and  moral  service 
which  every  true  religion  involves  and 
requires. 


42 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE 


And  so  we  have  to  consider,  however 
inadequately,  what  there  is  to  be  said  for 
the  historical  interpretation  of  Jesus  Christ. 
We  have  to  ask  ourselves,  first  of  all, 
What  is  His  relation  to  the  history  of  the 
time  at  which  He  is  presumed  to  have 
lived  ?  We  have  to  ask  as  to  those 
who  reported  concerning  Him  whether 
they  are  credible  witnesses,  and  whether 
their  reports  may  be  received.  We  have 
to  ask  also  as  to  the  growth  of  ideas 
and  beliefs  about  Him.  Why  did  men 
and  women,  on  the  slender  foundation  of 
the  history  of  Jesus  in  Palestine,  build  all 
that  mighty  superstructure  of  thought  and 
action  that  we  know  as  Christianity  ? 
and  why  did  they  build  in  certain  forms 
and  not  in  others  ?  If  there  is  to  be 
drawn  a  line  of  distinction  between  the 
Jesus  of  history  and  the  Christ  of  faith, 
at  what  point  are  these  connected,  or  are 
they  connected  at  all  ?  If  so,  how  did 
the  one  pass  into  the  other,  and  how  are 
we  to  distinguish  between  them  ?  These 


SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS 


43 


are  the  points  that  must  be  frankly  and 
simply  inquired  into,  that  we  may  discover 
whether  there  is  or  is  not  in  the  new  thought 
of  to-day  some  light  to  be  shed  upon  the 
vital  problems  which  they  involve. 

And  at  the  outset  there  are  certain 
cautions  to  be  borne  in  mind.  The  subject 
is  one  which  must  be  approached  as  far 
as  possible  without  preconceptions.  There 
are  many  recent  writers  on  the  life  of  Jesus 
Christ  who  have  come  to  their  subject 
believing  that  anything  in  the  nature  of 
a  miracle  or  of  what  is  sometimes  called 
the  supernatural,  is  impossible  ;  or,  if  they 
do  not  sav  as  much  as  this,  the  feeling 
that  this  is  so  colours  their  whole  treatment 
of  the  subject.  That  is  to  say,  on  one 
fundamental  point  they  are  biassed  from 
the  outset.  This  bias  must  at  once  be 
banished  from  our  minds.  It  is  only  possible 
to  take  a  fair  view  of  the  facts  by  keeping 
on  that  aspect  of  the  question  at  least 
an  open  mind,  by  believing  that  there 
are  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth  than 


44 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE 


are  dreamt  of  in  our  philosophy.1  Then  we 
must  also  banish  from  our  minds  that  other 
prejudice  which  would  treat  the  records  of 
the  life  of  Jesus  Christ  as  being  absolutely  and 
wholly  exceptional,  and  as  having  to  be  taken 
as  verbally  inspired  and  literally  true.  There 
again  is  a  barrier  to  frank  and  free  discussion, 
and  to  true  thought.  We  have  to  approach 
the  whole  subject  with  an  absolutely  open 
mind,  in  reverence  and  on  our  knees,  as  every 
scientific  inquirer  approaches  any  subject  of 
inquiry — in  a  spirit  of  humility,  as  one  who 
knows  little,  and  asks  to  know  more,  pre¬ 
pared  for  whatever  the  truth  may  reveal,  and 
prepared  to  act  upon  the  truth  so  revealed. 

The  story  of  Jesus  Christ  is  contained 
mainly  in  three  Gospels.  These  come  first  in 
the  logical  though  not  in  the  chronological 
order  of  the  discussion.  These  three  Gospels 
are  known  by  the  term  Synoptic,  which 
means  that  they  give  a  common  synopsis 

1  St.  Augustine’s  cautious  statement  is  worth  bearing 
in  mind  here  :  “  Miracles  are  not  contrary  to  nature,  but 
only  to  what  we  know  of  nature.” 


SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS 


45 


of  the  subject  under  consideration,  or  in 
more  simple  speech  a  bird’s-eye  view. 
These  Gospels  present  certain  very  strange 
phenomena.  They  are  alike  and  yet  they 
are  different.  One  of  them  resembles  one 
of  the  other  two  more  than  it  does  the 
third,  and  the  points  in  which  they  are 
to  be  distinguished  or  in  which  they  are 
alike  differ  on  different  occasions.  The 
relation  between  these  three  Gospels  has  been 
for  long  years  a  matter  of  much  discussion 
and  of  keen  controversy.  At  the  present 
time  it  is  possible  to  say  that  a  certain 
agreement  on  some  main  points  has  been 
arrived  at.  It  is  now  fairly  generally  agreed 
that  of  these  three  Gospels  Mark  is  the 
earliest,  having  been  written,  roughly  speak¬ 
ing,  or  having  taken  the  form  in  which  we 
know  it,  between  the  years  a.d.  65  and  70. 
The  writers  of  the  other  two  Gospels  pro¬ 
bably  had  Mark’s 1  Gospel  before  them, 

1  Cf.  Wellhausen’s  Einlcitung,  p.  57  :  “  Mark  is  known 
to  the  two  other  Synoptic  writers  in  the  same  form  and 
with  the  same  contents  in  which  we  possess  it  now. 


46 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE 


embodied  it  in  their  writing,  and  added  to 
it  from  other  sources  known  to  themselves. 
Of  these  sources  there  is  one  which  was 
common,  just  as  Mark  was,  in  some  measure 
both  to  Matthew  and  to  Luke.  This  source 
consisted  of  a  number  of  logia,1  oracles 
or  sayings  of  Jesus  Chi'ist.  Concerning 
these  there  is  a  fairly  well  authenticated 
tradition  that  they  were  collected  by  the 
Apostle  Matthew.  In  addition  there  are 
certain  other  sources  drawn  upon  by 
Matthew  from  which  were  obtained  his 
genealogy  and  his  account  of  the  birth  of 
Jesus  Christ.  There  are  other  sources  also 
drawn  upon  by  Luke  giving  his  genealogy 
and  his  account  of  the  birth  of  Jesus, 
and  containing  also  another  long  narrative 
which  is  called  the  Perean  section.2  But 


1  Commonly  called  Q,  from  the  German  Quelle ,  source. 

2  Of  this  Wernle  says  ( Quelle  des  Lebens  Jesu)  :  “It  is 
highly  probable  that  Luke  compiled  these  valuable  pieces 
of  information  out  of  a  lost  Gospel.”  Some  think  that  this 
special  source  was  used  elsewhere  in  Luke’s  Gospel,  and 
that  it  adds  an  element  of  equal  historical  value  to  that 
supplied  by  Mark. 


SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS 


47 


the  net  result  of  this  is  that  of  the  three 
Gospels  Mark’s  is  the  centre  and  the  earliest. 
The  other  two  embody  this,  alter  it  a  little 
in  places,  and  upon  this  prior  work  build  up 
their  narratives,  with  the  addition  of  certain 
other  material  to  which  they  had  access. 

We  must  now  examine  these  writers 
individually.  The  Gospel  of  Mark  is  an 
historical  document  of  the  first  importance. 
It  is  a  clear,  vivid,  artless  narrative  written 
with  no  other  purpose  than  to  set  forth 
certain  facts  concerning  Jesus  Christ,  to  pro¬ 
claim  His  Gospel,  and  to  declare  Him  to  be 
the  Son  of  God.  The  story  may  be  taken 
fairly  to  represent  the  ideas  of  the  early 
Church  concerning  Jesus,  and  there  is  pro¬ 
bably  some  truth  in  the  tradition  that  the 
writer  derived  his  material  largely  from  the 
preaching  of  the  Apostle  Peter.  His  writing 
fits  in  with  the  known  history  of  the  time, 
and  bears  upon  it  certain  watermarks  of 
truth.  Side  by  side  with  other  documents 
of  the  age  it  stands  out  conspicuous  for  its 
sobriety,  sanity  and  its  marked  authenticity. 


48  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE 

In  this  Gospel  we  are  often  nearer  the  actual 
scenes  of  the  life  of  Jesus  than  in  any  other, 
and  the  interpretations  of  Jesus  and  His 
work  which  are  given  in  it  are  among  the 
earliest  that  we  know. 

The  Gospel  of  St.  Matthew  is  a  different 
story.  This  Gospel  was  written  especially 
for  Jews  and  Jewish  Christians.  Its  chief 
aim  was  to  prove  to  them  that  Jesus  was 
the  Messiah,  and  it  is  undoubtedly  coloured 
by  that  intention.  Naturally,  therefore, 
it  gives  greater  prominence  to  the  teaching 
of  Jesus,  and  it  is  particularly  valuable 
from  the  special  way  in  which  that  teaching 
is  treated.  To  the  writer  of  this  Gospel 
Jesus  is  the  Messiah,  and  His  work  is 
interpreted  as  the  consummation  of  God’s 
revelation  to  and  through  Israel.  In  His 
teaching  Jesus  gives  the  new  law  of  God 
which  is  to  fulfil,  and  to  that  extent  to 
supersede,  the  old.  The  fact  that  He  does 
this  indicates  the  exalted  position  which 
He  occupies  in  the  mind  and  faith  of  the 
evangelist. 


SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS 


49 


St.  Luke  stands,  again,  by  himself.  One 
of  the  more  recent  results  which  modern 
New  Testament  investigation  (especially  in 
the  recent  work  of  Harnack)  has  produced 
has  been  the  impression  as  to  the  reliability 
of  St.  Luke  as  an  historian.  He  was  care¬ 
ful  and  accurate.  He  tried  to  write  in 
order,  and  to  sift  his  materials.  He  used  at 
least  two  earlier  written  records,  Mark  and 
another  (seen  most  clearly  in  chaps,  ix. 
51 — xviii.  14),  the  latter  of  which  selected 
incidents  dealing  especially  with  the  poor 
and  outcast :  and  this  helps  to  give  its 
peculiar  emphasis  and  colour  to  Luke’s  own 
work.  His  Gospel  is  one  of  glad  tidings  for 
the  poor,  but  it  is  the  Gospel  of  a  Saviour,  of 
One  who  has  the  power  to  help  men  and  to 
deliver  them  from  their  sins.  To  St.  Luke, 
as  to  the  other  Synoptic  writers  Jesus  is  the 
Son  of  God  manifested  in  grace  and  power. 

Now,  what  have  we  here  as  regards  the 
history  ?  It  is  both  necessary  and  possible 
to  go  behind  all  these  three  Gospels.  There 
is  something  behind  both  the  logia  of 

4 


50 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE 


Matthew  and  the  narrative  of  Mark.  These 
both  spring  from  the  life  and  thought  of  the 
early  Church.  But  behind  them  we  find, 
besides  the  sources  which  we  have  mentioned, 
such  writings  as  the  speeches  of  St.  Peter 
in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  and  the  letters 
of  St.  Paul.  These  are  among  the  earliest 
of  our  evidences  in  regard  to  Jesus  Christ, 
and  they  are  evidences  which,  as  modern 
research  has  shown,  cannot  be  reasonably  set 
aside.  In  the  thirty  or  forty  years  that 
elapsed  between  the  death  of  Jesus  on  the 
cross  and  the  writing  of  the  first  of  our 
Gospels  there  is  to  be  found  a  body  of 
tradition  growing  up  amongst  men  and 
women  who  knew  J esus  Christ,  who  had 
seen  Him  and  heard  Him  preach.  This 
body  of  tradition  1  remained  steadfast  and 

1  Cf.  Burkitt,  The  Gospel  History  and  its  Transmis¬ 
sion  :  “  When  Q.  ( i.e .  the  Logia)  and  Mark  appear  to 
report  the  same  saying,  we  have  the  nearest  approach  that 
we  can  hope  to  get  to  the  common  tradition  of  the  earliest 
Christian  society  about  our  Lord’s  words.”  Perhaps  we 
may  say  the  same  of  independent  agreement  between  Mark 
and  the  source  of  Luke. 


SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS 


51 


immovable,  centring  round  the  Person  of 
Jesus  Christ  as  its  great  focal  point.  In 
the  hands  of  the  Evangelists  the  story  of 
this  Person  took  the  form  it  did  because 
each  of  them  gave  his  testimony  with  a 
single  eye  to  the  truth,  as  it  had  found  him, 
and  therefore  as  he  believed  it  would  find 
others.  It  may  be  said  that  they  wrote 
with  a  purpose,  but  their  purpose  was 
not  such  as  to  destroy  their  veracity  as 
witnesses. 

If,  then,  we  go  back  beyond  these  Gospels, 
and  sift  the  story  they  contain  as  it  ought 
to  be  sifted,  what  is  the  residuum  that  we  find 
concerning  J esus  Christ  ?  The  question  is 
an  important  one,  because  it  is  too  generally 
assumed  by  some  of  the  more  advanced 
critics  of  the  New  Testament  that  if  we 
could  go  far  enough  back  and  reconstruct 
the  earliest  picture  of  Jesus  Christ,  we  should 
find  that  He  was  simply  a  man  like  other 
men — &  great  man,  no  doubt,  a  religious 
genius,  but  no  more.  We  should  find  also, 
it  is  said,  that  the  account  we  have  of  Him 


52 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE 


is  but  the  result  of  the  growth  of  popular 
tradition  and  legend,  and  that  the  person 
discoverable  behind  it  all  was  but  a  great 
Jewish  Rabbi.  It  is  not  that  the  his¬ 
toricity  of  Jesus  is  denied.  Such  a  person 
may  be  assumed  to  have  existed.  But 
if  the  truth  were  known  Pie  would 
be  found  to  be  a  very  different  person 
from  the  one  that  is  set  before  us  in  the 
Gospels. 

It  may  safely  be  said,  however,  that 
this  conclusion  is  not  borne  out  by  the 
facts.  The  first  point  to  be  considered  is 
that  these  writers  are  all  concerned  to 
write  a  Gospel.  They  are  not  writing  a 
biography  of  Jesus — they  do  not  attempt 
to  do  anything  of  the  kind.  They  wrote 
what  they  called  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ 
— that  is,  the  good  news  of  Jesus  Christ,  and 
the  good  news  is  not  something  that  Jesus 
Christ  said  about  God,  or  some  message 
that  He  delivered  to  men.  The  good  news 
is,  in  the  first  instance,  Jesus  Christ  Himself, 
His  life,  His  person,  His  action,  and  His 


SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS 


53 


teaching.1  That  is  the  centre  of  the  whole 
story,  and  the  concern  of  the  Evangelists 
was  to  set  forth  Jesus  Christ  in  His  aspect  of 
good  news  to  men,  because  they  themselves 
had  come  to  believe  that  in  this  Person 
there  was  one  that  had  to  do  with  every 
child  of  man,  and  that  He  not  only  spake 
things  which  men  would  want  to  hear, 
but  did  things  in  the  benefits  of  which 
men  would  want  to  share.  But  what  of 
the  Person  that  is  thus  delineated  ?  We, 
in  these  days,  stand  at  a  special  disadvantage 
because  every  word  in  these  Gospels  is  so 
familiar  to  us  that  we  can  hardly  help 
reading  them  without  a  kind  of  bias  or 
assumption  that  spoils  their  real  effect. 
It  would  be  good  for  us  sometimes  if  we 
could  take  a  point  of  view  sufficiently 
detached  as  to  be  able  to  read  the  Gospel 
of  St.  Mark  with  an  absolutely  open  mind. 


1  Cf.  Harnack:  “Jesus  belongs  to  His  Gospel  not  as  a 
part  of  it,  but  as  its  embodiment.  He  is  its  personal 
realisation  and  its  power.  And  such  He  will  always  be 
felt  to  be.” 


54  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE 

The  attempt  is  worth  making  in  order 

that  we  may  discover  for  ourselves  the 

•/ 

point  of  view  of  the  Gospel  writers,  and. 
the  kind  of  impression  which  the  story  of 
Jesus  first  made  upon  them.  In  this  story 
we  have  One  depicted  in  simple, 
guage,  with  a  kind  of  unconscious  but 
consummate  art,  who  at  once  produces  an 
impression  which  is  different  from  that  of 
any  other  character  in  history. 

The  character  of  Jesus  Christ  as  it  is  drawn 
in  these  Gospels  is  so  complete,  so  lofty,  so 
strangely  perfect,  that  it  is  hard  indeed 
to  believe  that  any  average  men  could 
have  invented  it.  He  is  meek,  and  yet 
He  makes  the  loftiest  pretensions.  He 
claims  to  stand  in  unique  relations  to  man, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  to  God  upon  the 
other.  He  speaks  concerning  God  and  man 
in  tones  that  are  everywhere  recognisable, 
not  only  by  His  contemporaries  but  by 
us,  as  tones  of  authority.  He  claims  the 
power  to  forgive  men’s  sins,  and  to  stand 
between  them  and  God.  He  tells  us  things 


S' YN  OPTIC  GOSPELS 


55 


about  ourselves,  about  the  innermost 
working  of  our  hearts  and  minds,  that  we 
have  in  our  best  moments  to  confess  to  be 
wonderfully  true  to  life.  He  deals  with 
His  own  life  in  such  a  fashion  as  to  make 
men  realise  that  He  is  in  the  world  for 
a  purpose,  and  that  the  fulfilment  of  that 
purpose  is  His  chief  business  here.  Also 
He  is  depicted  as  ere  long  setting  His 
face  steadfastly  towards  the  tragedy  which 
is  to  come  at  the  end  ;  and  He  meets  it 
not  in  the  bold  spirit  of  a  martyr,  but 
with  a  certain  shrinking  and  agony  and 
fear  that  make  us  understand  that  there 
was  something  here  that  cannot  quite  be 
explained  in  terms  of  a  martyr’s  death. 
He  gives  the  impression  of  One  who,  though 
He  was  truly  human,  was  yet  perfect  as 
no  man  we  have  ever  known  or  read  of 
has  been  perfect.  What  is  called  the  t  sin¬ 
lessness  of  Jesus  Christ  is  not  a  dogma. 
It  is  a  fact.  The  picture  drawn  of  Him 
in  the  Gospels  is  consistently  that  of  One 
who  rose  superior  to  the  common  failings 


56 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE 


of  our  humanity.  The  picture  has  reality 
behind  it.  The  character  set  forth  is  not 
of  that  ideal  purity  which  might  be  regarded 
as  the  product  of  imagination.  It  gives 
an  impression  of  strength  as  well  as  of 
sweetness  and  light.  The  Jesus  of  the 
Gospels  is  indeed  one  who  was  tempted 
like  as  we  are,  yet  without  sin.  His  sin- 
lessness  was  an  achievement,  the  result  of 
struggle,  the  triumph  of  the  divine  over 
the  human,  and  of  the  spiritual  over  the 
earthly. 

Turn  now  from  the  character  to  the 
teaching  of  Jesus  Christ  as  it  is  set 
forth  in  the  Gospel  of  Mark  and  in  the 
logia  of  Matthew  alone.  Here  we  have 
not  doctrine,  not  a  systematic  theology, 
but  a  number  of  detached  sayings  con¬ 
cerning  God  and  man  and  life  that  certainly 
form  a  most  remarkable  collection.  To 
say  that  Jesus  was  a  religious  genius  is 
to  say  less  than  the  truth.  There  is  a 
directness,  a  reality,  and  a  force  about 
His  words  that  set  them  in  a  category  by 


SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS  57 

themselves.  He  spake  out  of  His  own 
inner  consciousness  and  experience ;  and 
though  some  corresponding  experience  is 
needed  to  enable  us  to  understand  His 
words,  the  first  judgment  passed  on  them 
remains  good,  that  “  never  man  spake 
like  this  man.’? 

But  there  is  more  to  be  said  even  than 
this.  The  Gospel  of  Mark  is  saturated 
with  miracle,  and  the  fact  must  be  frankly 
faced.  It  is  no  longer  possible  to  argue 
that  miracles  prove  that  Jesus  Christ  was 
divine.  In  modern  times  the  position  with 
regard  to  miracles  is  altogether  different. 
We  regard  them  as  attested  by  Jesus  Christ 
rather  than  as  an  attestation  of  Him. 
There  is  very  little  use  in  discussing  or 
trying  to  account  for  the  miracles  apart 
from  the  Person  of  Jesus  Himself.  It  is 
the  Person  that  adds  value  to  the  miracles, 
and  not  the  miracles  to  the  Person.  If 
these  events  were  recorded  of  any  ordinary 
person  in  history,  the  difficulty  of  accepting 
them  would  be  very  great.  It  is  because 


58 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE 


they  are  recorded  of  the  Person  we  read 
of  here,  and  it  is  because  there  is  something 
about  Him  so  great,  something  so  trans¬ 
cendent,  that  it  becomes  at  least  not  un¬ 
reasonable  to  believe  that  He  would  do 
things  other  people  did  not  and  could 
not  do.  Our  knowledge  from  other  sources 
of  the  power  of  the  Person  of  Jesus  must 
be  added  to  the  historical  evidence  for 
His  mighty  works. 

The  Gospel  of  Mark  ends  with  the  miracle 

of  the  Resurrection,  told  in  a  much  shorter 

form  than  we  find  elsewhere.  Upon  this 

0 

story  the  belief  of  the  early  Church  in  Jesus 
was  very  largely  based.  It  is  sometimes 
assumed,  however,  that  the  belief  in  the 
Resurrection  was  the  creation  of  the  thought 
of  the  early  Church  concerning  Jesus  Christ; 
but  when  that  assumption  is  made  the 
question  remains,  What  created  the  Church  ? 
We  shall  return  to  this  point  later.  Mean¬ 
while  we  may  simply  ask — If  Jesus  Christ 
never  really  rose,  if  it  were  all  a  dream 
or  a  mistake  on  the  part  of  the  disciples. 


SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS 


59 


why  did  they  remain  disciples  ?  Why 
did  they  make  themselves  into  a  Church, 
and  why  did  that  Church  act  as  it  did  ?  1 
It  is  difficult  to  avoid  the  belief  that 
at  the  grave  in  the  Garden  something 
happened — what  and  how  it  is  hardly  for 

t 

us  to  say — and  that  that  something  was  a 
sufficient  cause  of  all  that  afterwards  took 
place.  That  is  the  order  which  investiga¬ 
tion  has  to  take.  It  is  necessary  to  realise 
that  here  in  Jesus  Christ,  in  the  understand¬ 
ing  of  Him  which  the  disciples  reached, 
in  the  thought  to  which  they  were  driven 
concerning  Him,  in  the  actions  which  He 
Himself  accomplished,  there  was  that  which 
made  these  men  and  made  the  Church. 
And  the  power  which  they  felt  and  to  which 
they  witnessed  remains  until  the  present 
day.  The  greatest  miracle  about  the 
beginning  of  Christianity  in  some  respects 


1  The  disciples  do  not  give  the  impression  of  men  who 
were  acting  under  a  delusion,  nor  does  the  history  of  the 
early  Church  suggest  that  men  were  mistaken  in  looking 
to  Jesus  as  a  living  and  present  power. 


<50  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE 

is  the  miracle  of  these  Gospel  stories  of 
Jesus  Christ.  Many  years  and  much  labour 
have  been  spent  in  the  study  of  them,  and 
the  subject  is  by  no  means  exhausted.  Yet 
we  may  surely  say  that  to  imagine  that 
these  first  three  Gospels  could  have  come 
together  like  a  fortuitous  concourse  of  atoms 
is  altogether  impossible.  The  Synoptic 
portrait  of  Jesus  is  not  a  mosaic  made  up 
of  legend,  of  mistaken  reminiscence,  of 
Jewish  lore,  of  Rabbinical  teaching,  and  of 
Greek  philosophy.  It  is  hardly  too  much 
to  say  that  the  men  who  wrote  these  books 
were  not  capable  of  any  such  literary  feat 
as  this.  Thev  were  in  touch  with  reality 
all  the  way  through.  Behind  their  writings 
is  the  great  figure  of  the  Christ,  and  it 
was  His  transcendent  greatness  which  gave 
them  their  impulse  and  made  them  write 
as  they  did.  True,  they  did  not  altogether 
understand  Him,  and  could  seldom  rise  •To 
the  heights  He  occupied.  The  forms  and 
language  in  which  they  wrote  are  altogether 
their  own,  but  all  the  better  on  this  account 


SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS 


61 


do  they  reveal  the  substance  behind 
them. 

The  fact  remains,  therefore,  that  in  these 
three  different  accounts,  growing  up  as  they 
did,  and  written  by  different  hands,  we 
have  a  clear,  fairly  authentic,  and  uniform 
picture  of  Jesus  Christ.1  We  have  not  here, 
as  it  were,  a  number  of  rapid  impressionist 
sketches  which  present  different  types  of 
personality.  The  story  is  one,  and  the  unity 
of  it  is  the  most  remarkable  thing  about  it, 
and  the  question  arises  whence  that  unity 
came.  It  may  be  said  that  all  these  men 
were  geniuses.  That  would  make  the  thing 
far  more  difficult,  because  each  genius  would 
differ  from  the  other,  and  each  would 
present  the  subject  under  investigation  under 
a  guise  so  different  from  that  of  the  others 


1  Speaking  of  the  sources  of  the  Gospels  Dr.  Salmond 
says  :  “  The  more  I  study  the  Gospels  the  more  convinced 
I  am  that  we  have  in  them  contemporaneous  history — i.e. 
that  we  have  in  them  the  stories  told  of  Jesus  immediately 
after  His  death,  and  which  had  been  circulated  and,  as  I 
am  disposed  to  believe,  put  in  writing  while  He  was  yet 
alive.” 


62  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE 

that  it  would  be  almost  unrecognisable 
as  the  same.  There  are  in  existence  at 
least  three  different  biographies  of  the  poet 
Milton,  bv  three  skilled  literary  men,  all 
dealing  with  practically  the  same  materials, 
and  again  and  again  in  different  parts  of 
their  books  it  is  almost  impossible  to  believe 
they  are  writing  about  the  same  man. 
The  inference  is  that  none  of  them  really 
knew  him,  and  that  they  all  write  more  or 
less  from  imagination.  But  in  the  case  of 
our  Evangelists  there  arises  the  irresistible 
impression  that  there  is  some  Person  be¬ 
hind  their  accounts  of  whom  they  knew,  as 
it  were,  at  first  hand.  They  all  understand 
and  misunderstand  Him  in  the  same  way, 
but  they  are  trying  every  one  of  them 
honestly  and  faithfully  to  give  a  picture 
of  what  He  said,  did,  and  was,  and  in  that 
they  have  wonderfully  succeeded. 

The  explanation  of  this  is  not  very  far 
to  seek.  One  of  the  pitiful  things  about 
a  discussion  of  this  subject  is  the  way  in 
which  men  prefer  to  make  difficulties  for 


SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS 


63 


themselves,  and  go  round  by  the  longest 
route.  After  all  the  Columbus’  egg  solu¬ 
tion  is  often  the  soundest;  and  the  right 
solution  of  what  is  known  as  the  Synoptic 
problem,  on  the  historical  side  of  it,  is  the 
simplest  and  easiest.  It  is  just  this,  that 
behind  all  these  writers  there  is  a  Person 
whom  these  men  knew,  through  the  personal 
witness,  in  some  degree  at  least,  of  those  who 
had  seen  and  heard  Him  and  on  whom  He 
had  produced  an  indelible  impression,  and 
that  it  is  this  impression  which  they  have 
handed  on  to  us  to-day. 

Now,  if  this  is  so,  or  if  it  is  any  approach 
to  the  truth,  what  is  the  consequence  to 
the  Christian  Church  ?  To  be  quite  frank, 
we  may  say  that  it  is  altogether  useless  to 
discuss  questions  like  these  in  vacuo .  They 
are  far  too  important.  The  Church  has  no 
need  for  mere  scholastic  disquisitions  con¬ 
cerning  them.  That  is  simply  to  deal  with 
the  dry  bones.  Whether  they  accept  the 
fact  or  not,  Christian  people  are  deeply 
concerned  with  the  question  whether  they 


64  THE  CHRIST  OP  THE 

can  in  any  sense  go  back  to  the  days  of 
Jesus  Christ  and  believe  that  He  was,  and 
that  He  was  what  some  of  these  earliest 
disciples  believed  Him  to  be ;  whether 
they  can  regard  Him  as  in  a  true  sense  a 
man,  and  yet  so  great,  so  strange,  so  in¬ 
explicable  by  all  human  standards  that  He 
was  also  something  more — God  manifest  in 
the  flesh.  It  is  a  matter  of  supreme  concern 
to  the  Christian  Church  to  discover  whether 
this  is  so  or  not.  And  the  fact  may  be 
verified  by  every  man  for  himself,  not  only 
by  the  process  of  historical  inquiry,  but 
also  by  the  process  of  a  personal  experience. 
If  Christ  was  what  these  early  disciples 
believed  Him  to  be,  then  He  will  remain 
the  same  for  all  men.  The  avenue  of  faith 
still  remains  open,  and  every  man  may 
walk  in  it  for  himself.  To  trust  Christ  and 
to  obey  Him,  to  take  Him  at  His  word  and 
to  accept  His  will,  is  still  possible  to  us,  and 
produces  still  the  same  effects  as  in  the 
days  of  old.  The  suggestion  of  Coleridge 
that  no  man  has  a  right  to  judge  Christianity 


SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS  65 

till  he  has  tried  it  for  himself  has  about  it 
a  certain  truth  and  reasonableness.  “  If 
any  man  willeth  to  do  God’s  will  he  shall 
know  of  the  teaching  whether  it  be  of  God.” 
Thus  Jesus  Himself  called  for  the  childlike 
candour  of  a  personal  quest.  To  those  who 
approach  Him  in  such  a  spirit  His  true 
greatness  dawns  upon  the  soul,  the  ancient 
historic  picture  obtains  a  new  life  and 
warmth,  its  vague  outlines  are  filled  in,  and 
the  heart  is  moved  to  the  confession,  “  My 
Lord  and  my  God.” 


5 


CHAPTER  II 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  PAUL 


CHAPTER  II 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  PAUL 

Paul,  a  servant  of  Jesus  Christ,  called  to  be  an  apostle. 

Rom.  i.  1. 

A  MODERN  writer  has  said  that  it  is  to¬ 
day  with  St.  Paul  as  St.  Paul  himself 
said  that  it  was  with  Moses,  viz.  that  a 
veil  is  over  the  hearts  of  the  people  when 
his  words  are  read.  And  certainly  with 
many  Christians  that  is  only  too  true.  To 
them  this  great  apostle  is  but  a  name 
for  a  number  of  difficult  themes,  for  a  num¬ 
ber  of  letters  hard  to  be  understood,  and 
for  a  number  of  unintelligible  texts.  By 
the  great  majority  of  Christian  people  the 
Apostle  Paul  has  almost  ceased  to  be  re¬ 
garded  as  a  real  and  living  man.  They 
speak  of  him  as  the  second  founder  of 
Christianity.  They  have  a  secret  suspicion 


69 


70  THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  PAUL 

that  he  spoiled  what  they  call  the  pure 
and  simple  doctrine  of  Jesus  Christ.  They 
believe  that  it  was  he  who  was  responsible 
for  turning  Christianity  from  a  very  simple 
ethical  system  into  a  system  of  dogma. 
They  say  that  to  St.  Paul  may  be  traced 
nearly  all  the  intellectual  and  ecclesiastical 
troubles  of  Christendom,  and  therefore  they 
are  too  ready  to  set  him  upon  one  side  as  a 
teacher  and  leader  who  may  easily  be  dis¬ 
pensed  with.  And  they  are  making  a  great 
mistake.  One  of  the  benefits  that  is  likely 
to  come  from  a  closer  investigation  and 
clearer  understanding  of  the  New  Testament 
Scriptures  is  a  better  understanding  and 
appreciation  of  this  great  apostle.  He  has 
been  no  doubt  admired,  reverenced,  almost 
worshipped  in  the  past ;  he  has  been  re¬ 
sponsible  for  great  revivals  of  Christian 
truth  and  teaching ;  but  in  it  all  he  himself 
has  remained  somewhat  obscure.  He  has 
given  to  men  and  women  the  key  to  the 
understanding  of  the  spirit  of  Christ,  but 
over  his  own  spirit  there  has  been  drawn  a 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  PAUL 


71 


veil,  and  it  is  well  for  us  sometimes  to  try 
to  get  behind  his  terminology  and  teaching, 
and  to  discover  there  an  intense,  passionate, 
and  holy  man — one  of  the  few  great 
figures  in  the  world’s  history,  and  one  from 
whom  even  to-day  much  may  be  learned 
of  the  things  of  God  and  of  the  secret  of 
Christ. 

Now,  our  concern  at  present  is  not  with 
St.  Paul  and  his  teaching  as  a  whole,  but 
with  St.  Paul’s  presentation  and  under¬ 
standing  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  This 
man  is  our  earliest  and  most  important 
witness  for  Jesus  Christ.  He  became  a 
Christian  only,  at  the  outside,  some  four  or 
five  years  after  the  crucifixion  of  Jesus. 
His  letters  are  the  earliest  Christian  docu¬ 
ments  extant,  and  the  more  important  of 
them  are  to  be  dated  within  twenty-five 
years  of  the  death  of  Jesus.1  They  take  us 
back  to  that  time  when  Christian  teaching 

1  Harnack  puts  the  conversion  of  St.  Paul  in  the  year 
a.d.  30  and  the  writing  of  the  Thessalonian  Epistles  in  the 
year  48-49.  Ramsay  says  51-52. 


72 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  PAUL 

i 

was  being  first  formulated,  and  when  the 
Christian  Church  was  being  first  built  up. 
They  are  in  no  sense  studied  historical  pre¬ 
sentations  of  Jesus  Christ ;  they  are  rather 
fugitive  pieces  that  have  come  white-hot 
out  of  the  heart  of  the  writer  and  are 
addressed  to  certain  special  needs  and  cir¬ 
cumstances  in  the  Christian  Church.  There 
is  nothing  artificial  about  them.  There  is 
nothing  of  the  skilled  presentation  of  a  case. 
They  take  for  granted  many  of  the  things 
we  would  like  to  know,  and  they  deal  with 
subjects  which  to  the  writer  were  intensely 
real.  It  is  necessary  to  take  some  pains  in 
trying  to  understand  them ;  and  they  are 
to  be  understood,  not  by  being  treated  as 
repositories  of  proof  texts,  but  by  being  read 
as  we  would  read  any  other  books,  and  read 
with  the  background  of  the  time  and  circum¬ 
stances  in  which  they  were  written  always 
before  our  minds.  When  this  is  done  it  is 
possible  to  discover  what  wonderful  letters 
these  are.  They  burn  with  passion  and 
throb  with  life  ;  there  is  felt  through  them 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  PAUL  73 

the  beating  of  a  great  heart ;  they  are  direct, 
forceful,  and  convincing ;  they  witness  in 
every  line  of  them  to  the  hold  which  the 
writer  had  on  Jesus  Christ,  and  to  the  hold 
which  Jesus  Christ  had  on  him. 

These  letters  show  us  that  to  St.  Paul 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  was  in  the  first  in¬ 
stance  the  Man  of  Galilee.  There  are  some 
scholars  who  tell  us  that  they  can  discover 
in  the  writings  of  the  Apostle  Paul  that  he 
had  no  sort  of  interest  in  the  historical  Jesus. 
They  say  he  is  dealing  with  the  Christ  of 
Idea  and  Ideal  all  the  while  ;  that,  as  St. 
Paul  presents  Him,  Christ  is  a  kind  of 
phantasmal  being,  the  product  of  his  own 
heated  imagination,  and  very  far  removed 
from  the  Jesus  of  history.  The  answer  to 
this  allegation  may  be  discovered  by  every 
reader  for  himself.  It  is  only  necessary  to 
read  these  letters  as  has  just  been  suggested, 
candidly,  and  with  some  exercise  of  the 
historical  imagination,  and  it  is  possible  to 
discover  that  present  to  the  mind  of  the 
writer  is  the  J esus  of  history,  who  lived  at  a 


74  THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  PAUL 

certain  period  amongst  men,  who  was  born 
of  a  woman,  made  under  the  law,  who 
taught  and  spoke  as  never  man  spoke,  who 
left  with  His  disciples  a  conviction  of  His 
sinlessness  and  of  the  absolute  holiness  of 
His  character,  who  was  crucified,  who 
died  that  man  might  live,  who  rose  from 
the  dead,  and  of  whose  resurrection  there 
were  witnesses  then  living.  St.  Paul  has 
no  need  to  prove  these  points.  He  has 
no  need  to  dwell  upon  the  details  of  the 
life  of  Jesus.  He  has  no  need  even  to 
dwell  upon  the  details  of  the  teaching  of 
Jesus.  He  was  writing  for  people  whose 
minds  had  long  been  familiar  with  these 
things,  and  who  did  not  need  that  he  should 
repeat  them  on  every  occasion.  This  was  his 
Gospel,  the  message  he  was  urging  and  press¬ 
ing  upon  the  world.  What  he  had  to  do  was 
to  take  this  story  of  Jesus  Christ  as  it  had 
been  manifested  to  him,  and  to  tell  it  to 
others  in  such  a  way  as  that  out  of  the  tale 
they  could  come  to  understand  that  Jesus 
was  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  the  Saviour 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  PAUL 


75 


of  man,  God,  blessed  for  ever,  and  that  of 
this  great  fact  he,  Paul,  was  a  witness.1 

But  what  about  the  witness  himself  ? 
Is  the  man  to  be  trusted  and  is  his  testi¬ 
mony  sound  ?  Again,  there  are  some  scho¬ 
lars  who  tell  us  that  we  cannot  place  very 
much  reliance  on  the  testimony  of  a  man 
of  his  kind.  They  say  he  was  altogether 
too  imaginative  a  person.  They  even  accuse 
him  of  being  neurotic — to  use  a  modern 
term.  He  was  accustomed  to  have  visions 
or  trances  of  an  epileptic  kind;  and  for 
that  reason  it  is  assumed  that  we  cannot 
trust  him  any  more  than  we  can  trust 
any  poor  creature  of  the  sort  whom  we 
know  in  everyday  life.  These  things  are 
said  to  rest  on  the  man’s  own  testimony. 
He  had  visions  and  revelations  of  the 


1  Dr.  Denney,  however,  is  right  when  he  says :  “  There 
was  always  one  immense  qualification  of  this  ‘  purely 
historical  ’  view.  Paul  never  thought  of  Christ,  and  could 
not  think  of  Him,  except  as  risen  and  exalted.  Christianity 
may  exist  without  any  speculative  Christology,  but  it 
never  has  existed,  and  never  can  exist,  without  faith  in  a 
living  Saviour.” — Jesus  and  the  Gospel,  p.  30. 


76 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  PAUL 


Lord ;  and  when  a  certain  revelation 
came  to  him  he  did  not  know  whether 
he  was  in  the  body  or  out  of  the  body. 
It  is  not  always  easy  to  believe  one  in 
whose  life  imagination  evidently  played 
so  large  a  part.  But  this  is  only  one 
side  of  the  picture.  The  other  comes 
also  from  the  man’s  own  testimony.  He 
tells  us  that  he  was  educated  in  Jeru¬ 
salem,  that  he  was  a  Jew  of  the  Jews, 
even  a  Pharisee  of  the  Pharisees,  though 
he  had  a  somewhat  wider  outlook  than 
most  of  the  people  of  his  time,  because  he 
had  a  double  kind  of  education,  which 

enabled  him  to  see  bevond  the  borders  of 

* 

Judaism.  He  was  a  man  of  his  time,  and 
he  had  all*  the  limitations  of  his  time. 
The  earth  was  to  him  the  centre  of  the 
universe,  covered  over  with  a  brazen  canopy 
of  heaven,  in  which  the  stars  were  hung 
like  lamps.  His  world  was  the  Roman 
Empire,  and  beyond  its  confines  he  hardly 
looked.  He  was  expecting  the  coming  of 
the  Messiah  ;  he  was  charged  throughout 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  PAUL 


77 


with  strange,  Jewish  notions  concerning 
God  and  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  of  the 
coming  of  God’s  Servant.  But  within  this 
framework  of  contemporary  thought  and 
religion  we  can  read  something  else,  and 
can  discover  the  kind  of  man  that  this 
was.  He  was  a  sane,  strong,  shrewd,  and 
keenly  intellectual  man.  He  was  one  of 
those  men  between  the  lines  of  whose  speech 
we  may  read,  and  see  the  transparency  of 
his  nature,  the  eagerness  and  passion  of 
his  soul,  and  the  limpidity  of  his  thought, 
even  though  his  words  be  so  often  difficult 
and  confused.  He  was  a  man  who  had 
learned  to  live,  and  knew  what  life  was. 
No  one  can  read  that  great  paean  of 
his  on  Love  in  1  Corinthians  xiii.  with¬ 
out  knowing  the  kind  of  heart  that  was 
in  him.  He  was  a  man  ready  to  give 
himself  up  for  the  thing  he  accounted 
dear — a  patriot  of  the  patriots,  who  could 
count  himself  anathema  for  his  brethren’s 
sake.  He  poured  out  all  the  wealth  of 
his  talent  and  devotion  at  the  feet  of  Jesus 


78 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  PAUL 


Christ.  The  impression  he  produces  even 
to-day  is  that  he  was  one  of  the  great, 
strong  souls  of  history,  no  mere  fanatic, 
but  a  sane  and  trustworthy  man.  Take  one 
single  instance  out  of  the  record  of  his  life 
as  it  is  written  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles. 
In  the  vivid  account  there  given  of  the 
shipwreck  on  the  crowded  transport,  we 
are  told  that  when  the  very  sailors  them¬ 
selves  had  yielded  to  panic  there  was  one 
man  who  kept  his  head  and  saved  the 
situation,  and  that  man  was  this  saint 
and  visionary  Paul. 

Now,  what  was  the  relation  of  this  man 
to  Jesus  Christ  ?  He  had  been  at  first  a 
persecutor  of  Christianity.  He  was  a  Jew ; 
and  to  him  the  mere  thought  of  a  crucified 
Messiah  was  blasphemy.  It  was  a  degrada¬ 
tion  to  his  holy  religion,  and  being,  as  he 
was,  a  man  very  earnest  about  religious 
things,  he  thought,  as  any  man  of  his  time 
and  place  would  have  thought,  that  he  was 
doing  God  service  in  harrying  and  perse¬ 
cuting  these  Christians  to  the  utmost.  The 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  PAUL 


79 


history  of  religion  supplies  abundant  evi¬ 
dence  that  it  is  often  accounted  the  most 
right  and  glorious  thing  to  smite  the  enemies 
of  God  and  show  them  no  mercy :  and  that 
was  St.  Paul’s  view. 

It  was  when  he  was  engaged  on  this  work 
— a  work  necessary,  it  may  be,  but  hardly 
congenial,  journeying  from  Jerusalem  to 
Damascus  concerning  this  persecution  of  the 
Christians — that  suddenly  there  came  a  great 
light  from  heaven,  and  he  heard  a  voice 
saying  :  “  Saul,  Saul,  why  persecutest  thou 
me  ?  It  is  hard  for  thee  to  kick  against  the 
pricks.”  Trembling  and  amazed,  he  asked, 
“  Who  art  Thou,  Lord  ?  ”  And  the  answer 
came,  “  I  am  Jesus,  whom  thou  persecutest.” 
About  this  story,  and  the  experience  it 
involved,  a  whole  literature  has  grown  up. 
It  is  hardly  necessary  to  try  to  explain 
it:  we  may  be  quite  content  to  abide  by 
the  consequences  of  it  for  St.  Paul  and  for 
Christendom.  We  cannot  say  even  whether 
the  vision  was  subjective  or  objective. 
None  of  the  explanations  given  make  the 


80 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  PAUL 


slightest  difference  to  the  fact  that  from 
that  time  forward  Paul  was  a  changed 
man.  He  sank  to  the  earth  bewildered 
and  stunned.  He  came  to  himself,  groping 
like  a  blind  man ;  and  for  some  three  years 
he  dwelt  apart,  pondering  on  the  vision, 
and  seeking  to  relate  it  to  his  thought  and 
life.  It  had  come  to  him  like  a  bolt  from 
the  blue,  a  voice  from  the  very  presence 
of  God.  And  the  meaning  of  it,  as  he  came 
in  time  clearlv  to  see,  was  an  unmistakable 
conviction  that  in  this  Jesus  whom  he 
was  persecuting,  whom  he  hated  with  a 
bitter  hate,  there  was  the  Christ,  the  Son 
of  God,  the  Saviour  of  the  world.1 

Now,  St.  Paul  was  a  man  who  did  not  do 
things  by  halves,  and  when  he  discovered 
this  he  shaped  his  life  accordingly.  From 
that  very  moment  he  was  Christ’s  man,  he 
bore  branded  upon  his  body  the  marks  of 

1  It  is  more  than  probable  that  in  coming  to  this  con¬ 
clusion  St.  Paul  was  influenced  by  the  Messianic  and 
eschatological  ideas  in  which  his  mind  was  steeped  ;  but 
this  does  not  destroy  the  significance  of  his  discovery  of 
the  Christ  in  J esus. 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  PAUL  81 

Christ  Jesus.  He  was  the  bond-servant  of 
Christ ;  to  him  to  live  was  Christ,  and  he 
was  given  up  utterly  and  absolutely  to  this 
new  Leader  and  Master  of  his  soul.  It  was 
then  only  a  very  little  time  since  Jesus 
Christ  had  been  upon  the  earth.  Paul  con¬ 
sorted  with  some  of  the  men  who  had  known 
Him,  he  talked  with  them,  and  sat  at  their 
feet.  He  gathered  from  them  His  Gospel, 
and  came  to  understand  from  what  they 
said  something  of  the  teaching  and  message 
of  Jesus  Christ.  He  was  able  to  formulate 
in  his  own  mind  the  kind  of  thing  that  the 
life  of  Jesus  Christ  meant  for  himself  and 
for  the  world.  He  came  forth  from  his  days 
of  retirement  a  man  charged  and  possessed 
by  Jesus  Christ,  and  he  went  out  into  the 
world  as  the  apostle  of  Christ,  to  preach  His 
Gospel  to  all  men. 

What  did  this  Gospel  of  Paul  mean  ?  All 
his  teaching  concerning  Jesus  Christ  must 
be  interpreted  by  his  personal  experience  of 
Jesus  Christ.  First  of  all,  he  taught  men 
that  this  Jesus  was  the  Son  of  God.  A 


6 


82 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  PAUL 


close  study  of  St.  Paul’s  letters  concerning 
Jesus  Christ  leads  to  the  conclusion  that 
whilst  he  holds,  or  seems  to  hold,  that  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  was  in  some  way  inferior 
and  subordinate  to  God  the  Father,  he  yet 
very  frequently  puts  Him,  as  it  were,  side 
by  side  with  God,  and  reads  God  in  terms 
of  His  revelation.  To  him  God  is  the  God 
and  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  To 
him  Jesus  Christ  has  the  religious  value  of 
God  ;  to  him  Jesus  Christ  is  the  centre,  sum, 
and  beginning  of  the  Christian  religion.  It 
is  in  Christ  that  men  find  God,  it  is  through 
Him  that  they  discover  God’s  truth,  and  it 
is  by  their  relation  to  Him  that  they  enter 
into  communion  with  God  Himself.  And 
there  is  no  mere  artificial  theorising  about 
this.  It  is  not  that  the  Apostle  is  seeking  in 
some  way  to  prove  to  himself  and  his  fellow- 
men  that  there  is  something  in  Jesus  Christ 
different  from  other  men.  He  finds  the  fact 
of  Jesus  Christ  borne  into  his  consciousness, 
and  he  cannot  evade  it.  His  theology  is  not 
an  attempt  to  prove  a  thesis,  so  much  as  to 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  PAUL 


83 


account  for  a  body  of  facts.  Given  certain 
experiences,  his  problem  is  how  to  relate 
them  to  what  he  knows  of  God,  of  himself, 
and  of  the  world.  But  for  us  the  problem 
takes  a  different  form.  We  have  to  ask 
how  did  it  become  possible  and  agreeable 
for  a  man  like  this  apostle,  who  had  not 
known  Jesus  in  the  flesh,  to  go  about  and 
preach  Him,  and  in  the  strength  of  his 
preaching  to  suffer  and  to  persuade  others 
to  suffer  in  His  name  ?  The  only  answer 
to  the  question  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact 
that  to  St.  Paul  Jesus  was  the  Christ,  the 
everlasting  Son  of  the  Father,  the  Lord  and 
Master  of  men,  who  has  the  right  to  demand 
and  receive  the  homage  of  every  human 
soul.  It  is  not  altogether  easy  to  indicate 
the  ground  and  reason  for  this  in  the 
Apostle’s  consciousness.  It  may  be  that 
we  must  find  it  in  the  evidence  he  had 
received  from  the  other  apostles  as  to  the 
sinless  and  beautiful  life  of  Jesus  Christ, 
or  in  the  experience  which  he  had  himself 
obtained  concerning  Jesus  Christ  in  the 


84 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  PAUL 


meditation  of  his  own  heart.  But  whether 
we  find  it  here  or  there  matters  little  for  the 
result,  which  is  that  to  this  apostle  Jesus 
Christ  was  the  equivalent  of  God,  and  that 
he  found  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  in  Him  alone, 
the  way  to  God,  the  way  to  life  and  peace. 

But  once  more,  to  St.  Paul  Jesus  was  not 
only  the  Son  of  God,  He  was  the  Saviour  of 
the  world.  His  saving  work  centred  in,  and 
was  made  possible  by,  His  cross.  To  St. 
Paul  the  cross  of  Jesus  Christ  is  the  great 
central  pillar  of  his  faith ;  and  he  is  deter¬ 
mined  that  he  will  know  nothing  among 
men  save  Jesus  Christ  and  Him  crucified, 
and  that  he  will  glory  in  nothing  save  in  the 
cross  of  Jesus  Christ,  by  whom  the  world  was 
crucified  unto  him,  and  he  unto  the  world. 
In  his  attempts  to  describe  the  meaning  of 
the  death  of  Jesus  on  the  cross  St.  Paul 
almost  exhausts  the  possibilities  of  human 
speech.  It  is  a  sacrifice,  a  propitiation,  a 
means  of  reconciliation,  an  atonement.  In 
every  possible  way,  and  by  every  possible 
kind  of  illustration,  he  tries  to  bring  home 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  PAUL 


85 


to  the  hearts  of  men  this  thought,  that  in 
Jesus  Christ’s  death,  in  the  love  that  that 
death  involved  and  manifested,  there  is  a 
ground  and  reason  for  man’s  hope  and 
peace,  for  his  forgiveness,  his  justification, 
his  salvation,  his  sanctification. 

Now,  here  we  must  go  direct  to  the  heart 
of  the  Apostle’s  own  experience.  It  is 
quite  impossible  to  understand  St.  Paul’s 
view  of  the  atoning  death  of  Jesus  Christ 
by  examining  it,  as  it  were,  in  vacuo .  It 
must  be  regarded  always  in  the  light  of  his 
experience.  Apart  from  this  no  intelligible 
or  satisfactory  explanation  either  of  the 
fact  or  of  the  doctrine  based  upon  it  is 
possible.  Doctrine  is  in  this  case  but  the 
explication  of  experience :  it  puts  into  words 
the  influence  that  the  fact  of  the  death  of 
Christ  had  in  the  man’s  own  life,  and  the 
way  in  which  it  was  manifested  in  his  own 
experience.  Let  us  return  to  that  experi¬ 
ence  for  a  moment.  It  must  be  remembered 
that  St.  Paul  was  a  consistent  Jew,  a 
Pharisee  of  the  Pharisees,  by  his  own  con- 


86 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  PAUL 


fession.  He  was  devoted  to  the  Law,  he 
believed  in  the  Law  of  God,  and  he  believed 
that  the  one  thing  man  had  to  do  in  this 
world  was  to  keep  that  law.  For  himself, 
he  had  tried  to  keep  that  law  from  his  youth 
up,  and  he  had  tried  harder  than  most  men 
of  his  day.  He  had  made  it  his  business ; 
he  had  struggled  to  do  his  duty. 

Possibly  one  reason  why  men  find  it  so 
hard  to  enter  into  his  point  of  view  is  that 
they  have  never  struggled  as  he  did.  To 
many  men  religion  in  these  days  is  a  dainty, 
easy,  comfortable  thing:  they  have  never 
really  thought,  wrestled,  and  prayed.  Luther 
could  understand  St.  Paul,  because  he  had 
had  an  experience  similar  to  his.  To  him 
religion  was  a  great  and  serious  reality. 
He  too  had  known  the  bondage  of  the 
law,  and  had  struggled  desperately  to  free 
himself  from  it.  So  St.  Paul  when  he 
went  on  the  road  to  Damascus  was  utterly 
miserable,  ashamed,  and  beaten.  He  could 
not  keep  the  law.  Try  as  he  would,  he 
had  failed.  He  had  sinned  miserably,  and 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  PAUL 


87 


he  saw  before  him  a  long  vista  of  days 
in  which  he  was  to  strive  helplessly  and 
hopelessly  to  do  God’s  will,  but  without 
success.  And  then  there  came  the  revela¬ 
tion.  It  meant  for  him  that  what  he  could 
not  do  for  himself  God  through  Christ  Jesus 
had  done  for  him,  for  all  men,  and  for  all 
time  ;  and  that  what  he  had  to  do  now  was 
not  to  seek  to  do  the  will  of  God,  and  spend 
himself  in  vain  in  the  struggle,  but  rather 
to  accept  the  gift  of  forgiveness  at  God’s 
hands  as  a  gracious  act  upon  His  part  and 
as  won  for  him  by  the  work  of  Jesus  Christ. 
And  it  was  that  thought  which  brought  peace 
to  this  restless  soul.  It  was  the  conviction 
that  God’s  forgiveness  did  not  depend  upon 
what  a  man  did,  but  upon  the  sheer  pity  of 
God,  and  that  it  was  to  be  obtained,  not  by 
any  action  of  ours,  but  by  a  simple  trust  in 
God’s  willingness  to  give.  It  was  this  con¬ 
viction  that  broke  the  man  down  in  penitence 
and  trust,  and  lifted  him  up  again  on  his 
feet  a  new  man  in  Jesus  Christ,  who  had 
died  for  his  sake.  This  experience  is  obvi- 


88 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  PAUL 


ously  one  that  cannot  be  understood  by  any 
mere  intellectual  interpretation  of  it,  but 
by  an  experience  that  arises  out  of  the 
same  habit  of  thought  and  points  to  the 
same  ends.  To  enter  into  St.  Paul’s  mind 
we  must  stand  where  he  stood.  Those  who 
understand  what  sin  is,  who  have  felt  the 
alienation  that  comes  by  it,  the  gulf  be¬ 
tween  the  soul  and  God,  the  stain  of  guilt, 
will  be  glad  enough  to  take  the  way  of 
escape  that  is  offered  in  Jesus  Christ,  and 
to  find  in  His  manifested  love  their  peace 
and  their  salvation. 

And  thus,  once  more,  to  St.  Paul  Jesus 
Christ  was  not  only  Son  of  God  and  Saviour 
of  the  world,  but  He  was  Lord  of  life.  In 
the  writings  of  this  apostle  the  resurrection 
of  Jesus  Christ,  and  His  present  life  and 
power  resulting  from  it,  play  a  very  large 
part.  To  him  the  resurrection  was  vital.  It 
meant  everything.  It  meant  all  the  differ¬ 
ence  between  a  dead  and  a  living  Christ. 
It  meant  all  the  difference  between  hope 
and  despair.  “If  in  this  life  only  we  have 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  PAUL 


89 


hope  in  Christ,  we  are  of  all  men  most 
miserable.”  To  St.  Paul  Jesus  Christ  was 
not  a  sacred  and  beautiful  memory,  He  was 
a  living  power ;  and  in  Him  the  Apostle  him¬ 
self  lived.  Again,  we  must  judge  of  the 
reality  of  his  religion,  and  of  the  intelli¬ 
gibility  of  what  he  says,  not  simply  by 
the  outward  statement,  but  by  the  man’s 
experience,  by  the  effect  of  those  state¬ 
ments  in  his  life.  His  life  in  Christ  was  a 
positive  and  real  thing.  To  him  to  live  was 
Christ,  and  His  mystical  union  with  Christ 
had  a  real  ethical  value.  He  was  trying 
constantly  to  do  the  will  of  Christ ;  he  was 
preaching  every  hour  the  Gospel  of  Christ. 
He  saw  something  of  the  saving  power  of 
Jesus  Christ  in  his  own  life,  and  knew  what 
Christ  meant  to  him.  He  realised  that  he 
was  lifted  out  of  the  gloomy  dungeon  of  the 
law  into  the  glorious  liberty  of  a  child  of 
God.  He  knew  that  for  him  the  change 
was  as  real  as  it  was  inexpressible.  It 
meant  life  to  him,  a  new  life,  a  larger  and 
fuller  life  than  he  had  known  before;  and 


90  THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  PAUL 

because  he  knew  that,  he  was  able  to  tell 
men  and  women  of  the  Christ  who  had 
brought  this  to  him,  and  in  whom  he  found 
it  realised.  He  did  not  look  back  to  a  dead 
Christ ;  he  looked  up  and  around  him  as  to 
one  who  was  alive  for  evermore,  and  who 
was  his  elder  brother  and  his  daily  com¬ 
panion  and  friend.  He  found  in  this  Christ 
the  Head  of  the  Christian  Church,  of  the 
whole  Christian  community;  and  he  bade 
men  and  women  everywhere  to  look  up  to 
Him  as  to  their  Lord  and  Master,  their 
Saviour  and  their  King,  and,  by  their  rela¬ 
tion  to  Him,  find  life  and  peace. 

But  the  question  naturally  arises,  What 
sort  of  connection  is  there  between  this 
Christ  and  the  Jesus  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels? 
The  question  is  a  pertinent  one,  but  the 
answer  to  it  is  not  far  to  seek. 

It  is  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels  that  we  find 
the  seed,  the  beginning,  the  foundation  of 
all  that  St.  Paul  teaches.  He  was  not 
building  upon  air.  The  basis  of  his  doctrine 
was  not  a  dream.  It  was  because  Jesus 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  PAUL 


91 


had  been,  and  had  lived  and  died  and  risen 
again,  that  he  was  able  to  tell  people,  in 
that  wonderful  and  inimitable  speech  of  his, 
what  this  Christ  was  to  him,  and  what  He 
might  be  to  all  mankind.  If  we  are  to 
follow  out  the  teaching  and  thought  of  this 
apostle,  we  must  first  follow  his  experience, 
and  call  psychology  as  well  as  history  to  our 
aid.  The  one  thing  about  which  there  can 
be  no  doubt  is  the  place  which  Paul  gave 
to  Jesus  Christ  in  his  own  thought  and  life. 
To  this  apostle  Jesus  was  the  centre  of  the 
universe,  and  determined  a  man’s  relations 
both  to  God  and  to  his  fellow-men.  As  Dr. 
Denney  says  : 1  64  There  is  not  in  the  history 
of  the  human  mind  an  instance  of  intellectual 
boldness  to  compare  with  this ;  and  it  is  the 
supreme  daring  of  it  which  convinces  us 
that  it  is  the  native  birth  of  Paul’s  Christian 
faith.”  This  estimate  of  Jesus  Christ  can 
fairly  be  tested  only  by  those  who  share  the 
experience  out  of  which  it  arose.  44  To 
every  simple  Christian,”  says  a  modern 

1  Jesus  and  the  Gospel ,  p.  42. 


92  THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  PAUL 

German  writer1  “among  whom  we  theo¬ 
logians  ought  also  to  be  numbered,  there 
lies  open  the  practical  way  by  which  we 
may  be  led  through  Paul,  Cephas,  or  John, 
through  Luther  and  Zwingli,  through  wit¬ 
nesses  of  ancient  and  modern  days,  through 
parents,  teachers,  and  friends,  through 
husband  and  wife,  to  the  joyous  love  and 
faith,  and  to  the  unquenchable  light  of  the 
noble  and  enthralling  personality  of  Jesus, 
whence  such  joyous  love  and  faith  ever 
derive  fresh  sustenance.  And  whosoever 
abideth  in  this  love  abideth  in  God,  and  God 
in  him.” 

1  Dr.  Arnold  Meyer  in  Jesus  and  Paul. 


V 


V 


CHAPTER  III 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  JOHN 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  JOHN 

These  are  written,  that  ye  may  believe  that  Jesus  is  the 
Christ,  the  Son  of  God ;  and  that  believing  ye  may  have 
life  in  His  name. — St.  John  xx.  31. 

J~F  it  is  true,  as  it  is  sometimes  said,  that 
the  Gospel  of  Luke  is  the  most  beauti¬ 
ful  book  in  the  world,  it  is  certainly  true  that 
the  Gospel  of  John  is  the  most  precious.  In 
approaching  it  we  approach  holy  ground, 
and  we  may  well  take  the  shoes  from  off  our 
feet.  There  are  probably  very  few  Chris¬ 
tians  who  have  not  at  some  time  or  other  in 
their  experience  turned  to  this  Gospel  and 
found  in  its  wonderful  words  the  words  of 
life,  of  hope,  of  comfort,  and  of  peace.  To 
most  religious  people  this  Gospel  has  proved 
a  veritable  word  of  God,  especially  at  those 
times  in  their  lives  when  all  most  need 


95 


96  THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  JOHN 

help  and  guidance.  In  this  connection  we 
think  of  the  story  of  Nicodemus,  of  the 
Woman  of  Samaria,  and  of  the  picture  of 
Him  who  is  the  Light  of  the  World,  and  the 
Good  Shepherd,  and  the  Bread  of  Life  ;  of 
the  parable  of  the  Vine  and  the  Branches ; 
of  the  fourteenth  chapter — “  Let  not  your 
heart  be  troubled.  Ye  believe  in  God, 
believe  also  in  Me  ”  ;  and  of  that  strange  and 
inimitable  narrative  at  the  end,  when  the 
risen  Lord  comes  to  His  disciples  and  says, 
u  Simon,  son  of  John,  lovest  thou  Me  ? 

In  all  these  passages,  almost  in  every  verse 
of  them,  there  are  ideas  that  have  been 
hallowed  to  us  by  long  association,  and 
there  are  words  that  come  to  us  with  ever- 
fresli  meaning  and  with  ever-new  grace. 
And  yet  this  Gospel  presents  to  us  one  of 
the  strangest  and  most  difficult  problems  of 
the  New  Testament.  It  is  a  problem  which 
is  probably  insoluble ;  but  the  insolubility 
of  it  does  not  for  a  single  moment  mar  or 
destroy  the  spiritual  and  religious  value  of 
the  book.  This  should  be  remembered  in 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  JOHN 


97 


all  that  may  be  said  about  it  in  the  way  of 
criticism.  The  inspiration,  the  force,  and 
the  value  for  life  and  experience  of  these 
Scriptures  of  ours  do  not  depend  much 
upon  any  of  the  questions  of  authorship,1 
date,  or  authenticity,  of  which  so  much 
is  made. 

We  must  admit,  then,  at  the  outset  that 
the  book  presents  to  us  a  problem,  and  one 
that  has  not  yet  yielded  its  secret.  There 
is  in  the  New  Testament  a  cluster  of  writings 
which  are  called  Johannine,  consisting  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel,  those  Epistles  which  are 
known  by  the  name  John,  and  the  Apoca¬ 
lypse.  The  fact  that  these  writings  are  all 
attached  to  the  same  name  and  yet  differ 
widely  from  each  other  constitutes  the 
problem.  We  are  not  concerned  here  with 
the  relation  of  the  Gospel  to  the  other  books 

1  There  is  something  to  be  said  for  Prof.  Burkitt’s  view 
that  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  a  work  of  philosophy  and  of  philo¬ 
sophical  history,  and  that  therefore  it  is  less  important  to 
be  sure  of  its  authorship  than  if  it  were  a  strictly  historical 
document.  Cf.  The  Gospel  History  and  its  Transmission, 
p.  255. 


7 


98 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  JOHN 


bearing  the  same  name.  We  have  to  confine 
ourselves  to  the  Gospel,  and  to  state  the 
problem  it  presents,  especially  in  relation 
to  our  appreciation  of  the  Person  of  Jesus 
Christ. 

The  problem  may  be  stated  roughly  in  this 
way.  We  have  on  the  one  hand  the  Synoptic 
Gospels,  of  which  we  have  already  spoken, 
and  which  give  a  certain  view  of  the  life 
and  Person  of  Jesus  Christ.  We  have  also 
alongside  them  this  Fourth  Gospel,  purporting 
to  cover  much  the  same  ground,  and  to  deal 
with  the  life  and  teaching  of  the  Lord 
Jesus,  and  yet  doing  so  in  a  way  that  is 
absolutely  different  from  these  other  Gospels. 
We  need  have  nothing  to  do  in  these  days 
with  the  familiar  effort  on  which  so  many 
Christian  commentators  have  spent  them¬ 
selves  to  harmonise  the  various  Gospel 
accounts  of  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ.  There 
is  no  possibility  of  harmonising  them  if  we 
are  to  take  a  really  historical  and  philo¬ 
sophical  view  of  the  phenomena  which  these 
Gospels  present.  We  have  to  recognise  the 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  JOHN 


99 


existence  of  grave,  serious,  and  perhaps 
insurmountable  inconsistencies,  and  the  more 
frankly  we  recognise  them  the  better  it  will 
be. 

The  main  differences  between  John  and 
the  Synoptic  Gospels  may  be  described  as 
follows.  In  the  Synoptic  Gospels  there  is  a 
certain  grouping  of  the  life  and  teaching  of 
Jesus  Christ,  the  scene  of  it  being  mainly 
Galilee ;  in  St.  John  there  is  a  different 
grouping,  and  the  record  of  different  inci¬ 
dents,  the  scene  of  nearly  all  of  them  being 
Jerusalem.  In  the  Synoptic  Gospels  the 
teaching  of  Jesus  Christ  is  given  in  certain 
very  simple  and  popular  forms ;  in  St. 
John’s  Gospel  the  teaching  of  Jesus  Christ 
is  given  in  a  much  more  elaborate  form, 
and  in  a  form  which  is  cast  in  a  more  or 
less  philosophical  guise.  The  style  of  the 
Synoptic  writers  has  a  certain  simplicity  and 
directness  ;  the  writer  of  the  Fourth  Gospel 
has  a  style  which  is  much  more  artificial 
and  involved.  In  the  Synoptic  Gospels  it 
is  possible  generally  to  distinguish  between 


100  THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  JOHN 

the  sayings  of  Jesus  Christ  Himself  and  the 
writing  of  the  authors  of  the  Gospels  -  in 
St.  John’s  Gospel,  our  Lord,  the  writer  of 
the  Gospel,  John  the  Baptist,  and  even  the 
Jews,  all  speak  in  the  same  tongue,  and  all 
use  the  same  kind  of  language.  There  is  no 
narrative  of  the  Temptation  in  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  and  the  presentation  of  the  miracles 
is  different  from  that  of  the  Synoptic  writers. 
In  the  former  these  are  signs,  and  manifest 
the  glory  of  Jesus ;  in  the  latter  they  are  the 
outcome  of  His  compassion  for  men.  In 
St.  John’s  Gospel  there  is  found  a  set  of 
incidents  of  which  we  hear  very  little  in 
the  Synoptic  presentation  of  Jesus  Christ. 
Generally  speaking,  the  Gospel  gives  a  differ¬ 
ent  view  of  Jesus  from  that  of  the  Synoptic 
writers  •  there  is  added  to  it,  towards  the  end, 
that  whole  narrative  which  centres  around 
the  incident  of  the  Raising  of  Lazarus,  and  is 
of  immense  importance  from  the  standpoint 
of  the  Johannine  writer,  but  which  in  the 
Synoptic  Gospels  finds  no  mention,  and  for 
which,  indeed,  there  seems  to  be  no  place. 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  JOHN 


101 


There  is  at  least  one  serious  discrepancy  1  in 
regard  to  the  time  of  the  Lord’s  Supper,  and 
there  are  others  of  less  importance.  We 
have  here,  in  other  words,  a  writing  which 
professes  to  give  a  picture  of  Jesus  Christ, 
side  by  side  with  those  other  pictures  that 
we  have  seen,  yet  which  differs  from  them 
profoundly  in  certain  fundamental  points. 

Now,  it  will  no  doubt  be  generally  agreed 
that  it  is  perfectly  possible  for  different 
writers  to  present  a  different  account  of  the 
same  person,  or  of  the  same  events,  and  yet 
for  them  all  to  be  fundamentally  of  one 
mind.  But  whilst  there  is  a  certain  funda¬ 
mental  agreement  between  St.  John  and  the 
Synoptic  writers,  we  must  not  lay  too  much 
stress  upon  it.  We  must  rather  seek  the 
ground  of  the  difference.  And  when  we 
come  to  do  so  we  find  that  it  is  very  real,  and 

1  With  regard  to  this  Prof.  Burkitt  remarks,  loc.  cit.  : 
“  This  is  something  more  than  mere  historical  inaccuracy. 
It  is  a  deliberate  sacrifice  of  historical  truth  :  and  as  the 
Evangelist  is  a  serious  person  in  deadly  earnest,  we  must 
conclude  that  he  cared  less  for  historical  truth  than  for 
something  else.” 


102 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  JOHN 


that  it  accounts  very  largely  for  all  the 
phenomena  which  have  been  described. 
This  ground  of  difference  is  to  be  found  in 
the  words  which  stand  at  the  head  of  this 
chapter  :  “  These  are  written  that  ye  may 
believe  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ,  the  Son  of 
God,  and  that  believing  ye  may  have  life 
in  His  name.” 

The  Fourth  Gospel  is  not  a  history  of 
Jesus  Christ ;  it  is  not  an  attempt  to  write 
the  Life  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  Fourth  Gospel 
is  rather  a  theology  of  Jesus  Christ ;  it  is  an 
apologetic,  and  is  written  with  an  apologetic 
purpose.  Its  aim  is  that  men  may  believe 
that  this  Jesus  is  the  Christ,  and  that  aim 
dominates  the  writer  throughout.  It  guides 
him  in  the  selection  of  his  incidents,  and 
it  gives  him  the  interpretation  of  his  in¬ 
cidents  ;  it  justifies  him  in  taking  the  stories 
he  has  of  Jesus  Christ  and  translating  them 
into  his  own  language  and  using  them  for  his 
own  ends.  The  thing  is  perfectly  legitimate. 
There  is  no  attempt  to  deceive.  The  writer 
has  simply  gone  back  upon  the  things  he 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  JOHN 


103 


has  known  and  heard,  and  has  tried  to  set 
them  forth  so  as  to  persuade  the  people  of 
his  day  that  this  Jesus  of  whom  he  is 
speaking,  whose  teaching  is  being  handed 
about  from  mouth  to  mouth,  is  in  very  deed 
the  Son  of  God,  and  that  they  may  believe  in 
Him  and  have  life  in  His  name.  In  doing 
this  he  is  not  allegorising,  but  drawing  con¬ 
clusions  from  certain  facts  in  his  possession. 

Who,  then,  was  this  writer,  and  for  whom 
did  he  write  ?  Probably  most  Christians 
still  believe  that  the  writer  was  John,  the 
beloved  disciple,  and  yet  we  cannot  honestly 
face  the  problem  without  admitting  that 
it  is  exceedingly  difficult  on  merely  historical 
and  critical  grounds  to  establish  the  fact 
that  this  Gospel  was  written  by  the  Apostle 
John.  It  cannot  have  been  written  much 
before  the  end  of  the  first  century,  and  was 
probably  written  a  little  later.  If  John  the 
Apostle  wrote  it,  he  was  then  in  extreme 
old  age,  and  to  some  extent  at  any  rate  the 
Gospel  hardly  bears  the  signs  of  a  book 
written  by  a  very  old  man.  Scholars  have 


104 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  JOHN 


therefore  cast  about  to  try  to  find  who 
was  the  author.  Many  of  them  to-day  be¬ 
lieve  that  the  Gospel  was  written  not  by 
the  Apostle  John,  but  by  a  certain  John  the 
Presbyter,  who  was  a  well-known  figure  in  the 

9 

Church  of  Ephesus  about  the  end  of  the  first 
century.  Others  believe  that  the  Gospel  was 
written  by  some  disciple  of  the  Apostle,  and 
that  we  have  here  a  deposit  of  the  Apostle’s 
teaching  worked  up  by  one  of  his  followers. 

The  truth  probably  lies  somewhere 
between  these  various  theories.  Un¬ 
questionably  there  are  things  in  this  Gospel 
which  come  directly  from  a  man  intimately 
acquainted  with  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ, 
and  with  the  situation  in  Jerusalem  at  the 
time  when  He  was  alive.  There  is  a  de¬ 
posit,  a  substratum  of  first-hand  knowledge, 
which  is  as  good  as  anything  we  have  in  the 
Synoptic  Gospels,1  and  helps  us  to  add  to 

1  Cf.  Von  Soden :  “  The  Gospel  of  John  affords  ex¬ 
pressions  which  must  have  actually  come  from  Jesus,  and 
a  still  larger  number  which  are  so  entirely  formed  out  of 
the  Spirit  of  Jesus  that  they  might  well  have  originated 
with  Him.” 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  JOHN 


105 


the  information  they  give.  Then  we  have 
to  bear  in  mind  that  this  Gospel  was  written 
by  a  man  who  was  capable  of  understanding 
Jesus.  We  have  here — and  the  fact  remains 
good  whatever  historical  arguments  may 
be  brought  to  bear  upon  the  point — a 
searching  into  the  heart  of  Jesus  Christ, 
a  grasp  of  the  meaning  of  the  Incarnation 
and  of  the  whole  purpose  of  the  coming  of 
Jesus  Christ  into  the  world,  of  which  we  have 
very  little  suggestion  in  the  Synoptic  writers. 
They  frankly  stand  as  men  amazed,  be¬ 
wildered,  and  dismayed  before  the  great 
portent  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  But  here  is 
a  man  who  takes  a  different  position.  He 
sees  in  Jesus  the  Christ  from  the  first. 
That  explains  why  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels 
the  Messianic  conception  of  Jesus  grows 
gradually,  whereas  in  the  Fourth  Gospel 
Jesus  is  regarded  as  the  Christ,  the  Light 
of  the  World,  the  One  who  was  to  come 
from  first  to  last,  without  any  hesitation, 
and  without  any  doubt.  The  writer  of 
the  Gospel  is  a  man  of  great  soul,  and  of 


106 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  JOHN 


keen  religious  insight.  He  has  entered 
more  deeply  into  the  life  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  than  any  man  of  his  time — more 
deeply  even  than  the  great  Apostle  Paul ; 
and  he  was  a  man  who,  if  he  had  not  intimate 
personal  acquaintance  with  the  Lord  Jesus, 
had  that  spiritual  acquaintance  with  Him 
which  is  yet  more  precious,  and  as  real. 
That  his  acquaintance  with  Jesus  was  “after 
the  flesh  ”  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact 
that  in  this  Gospel  the  humanity  of  our 
Lord  is  as  clearly  indicated  as  in  any  of 
the  others.  It  is  by  no  means  impossible 
to  believe  that  even  in  old  age  the  Apostle 
may  have  given  to  some  amanuensis  or 
disciple  his  own  interpretation  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  that  he  gave  it 
for  a  purpose — that  men  might  believe, 
that  the  troubled  life  of  his  time  might  be 
penetrated  once  again  with  this  great 
Light,  that  those  who  were  perverting 
and  destroying  the  real  aim  and  purpose 
of  the  Christian  teaching  might  be  brought 
back  again  to  the  Truth,  and  that  he 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  JOHN 


107 


might  hold  up  before  them  Jesus  as  the 
Christ.1 

The  importance  of  this  Gospel  does  not, 
of  course,  lie  in  its  literary  completeness, 
in  its  literary  beauty,  or  in  the  history 
which  it  may  be  said  to  teach.  The  im¬ 
portance  of  it  is  in  its  great  apologetic 
purpose,  and  it  is  with  this  that  we  really 
have  to  do  here.  We  have  set  before  us 

here  a  picture  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  an 

\ 

interpretation  of  Him,  which  comes  from 
the  end  of  this  first  century,  when  opinion 
about  Jesus  was  beginning  to  crystallise, 
when  the  old  traditions  were  being  sifted, 
and  when  the  meaning  of  them  was  being 
set  before  men.  We  have  this  picture  as 
the  expression  of  the  thought  of  the  best 
teacher,  perhaps,  in  the  Church  of  the 
day,  and  we  want  to  know  what  it  means. 
The  really  important  thing  is  not  the 


1  It  is  important  to  remember  that  the  Gospel  was  written 
at  the  time  when  men  lived  in  expectation  of  the  end  of  all 
things,  and  that  the  end  was  in  the  minds  of  Christians 
closely  connected  with  the  person  and  coming  of  our  Lord. 


108 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  JOHN 


stories  that  are  told,  but  the  portrait  that 
is  thrown  upon  the  canvas  and  the  Person¬ 
ality  that  lies  behind  it.  The  Christology 
of  this  book,  as  we  say,  its  interpretation  of 
Jesus  Christ,  is  its  most  outstanding  feature, 
and  that  which  specially  concerns  us  just  now. 

In  the  Synoptic  Gospels  we  find  that 
Jesus  Christ  is  represented  as  standing  in 
a  unique  relation  to  God  upon  the  one 
hand,  and  to  the  human  race  upon  the 
other.  In  the  Fourth  Gospel  we  find  a 
definite  theory  of  this  relationship.  It  is 
said,  first  of  all,  that  He  is  the  Logos,  the 
Word  of  God.  That  prologue  to  the  Gospel 
which  tells  us  this  is  a  very  remarkable 
document.  It  at  once,  as  the  critics  say, 
strikes  an  artificial  note ;  it  at  once  seeks 
to  give  us,  not  a  picture  of  Jesus,  but 
an  interpretation  of  Jesus,  and  an  inter¬ 
pretation  couched  in  the  language  and 
forms  of  thought  peculiar  to  the  time  and 
place  at  which  it  was  written.  But  there 
is  nothing  illegitimate  in  that.  The  very 
thing  that  we  need  to  do  is  to  interpret 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  JOHN 


109 


Jesus  Christ  in  the  forms  of  our  own  day. 
It  is  the  one  thing  the  Christian  Church 
is  crying  out  for  more  than  any  other,  and 
it  is  the  lack  of  it  that  makes  theology 
often  so  unreal  and  unworthy  a  thing.  We 
cannot  blame  the  men  of  the  early  Church 
because  they  read  Jesus  Christ  and  sought 
to  interpret  Him  and  His  work  in  the 
forms  of  their  own  thought,  and  used  the 
familiar  term  Logos  to  express  the  Word 
that  was  with  God,  and  the  Word  that 
was  God.  The  idea  is  taken  from  the 
current  philosophy,  as  it  meets  us  in  the 
Jew  Philo.  But  in  the  Johannine  conception 
there  is  very  much  more  than  was  taught 
by  Philo.  Those  who  have  studied  the 
Logos  speculations  in  Greek  philosophy 
realise  what  a  wide  and  deep  gulf  separates 
this  Gospel  from  any  of  these  fantastic 
systems.  Very  few  of  the  powers  which 
are  attributed  to  the  Logos  are  attributed 
by  the  writer  of  the  Gospel  to  Jesus  Christ. 
We  rise  at  once  out  of  the  strange  and 
artificial  atmosphere  which  the  Alexandrian 


110 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  JOHN 


philosophy  breathes.  There  is  a  real  at¬ 
tempt  on  the  part  of  a  real  man  to  interpret 
things  which  are  to  him  as  real  as  they 
are  precious.  Jesus  to  this  man  was  God’s 
Word,  the  ultimate  and  absolute  expression 
of  God  to  man  ;  in  Jesus  Christ  he  would 
have  men  see  God ;  He  is  to  them  the 
reflection  of  the  Father,  and  through  Him 
they  enter  into  the  Father’s  presence;  and 
it  is  only  in  and  by  Him  that  God  can 
be  known.  So  we  have  it  that  Jesus 
Christ  is  the  Truth,  the  final  expression  of 
God’s  Truth  to  the  world,  and  that  if 
men  want  to  come  at  the  Truth — and  it 
was  a  great  quest  in  those  days,  as  it  is 
still — it  is  in  Christ  that  they  will  find  it, 
and  only  in  Him.  So,  again,  Jesus  Christ 
is  the  Way  to  the  Father,  and  men  must 
walk  in  that  Way  if  they  would  know 
God.  They  must  do  His  will  if  they  would 
know  of  the  doctrine.  To  this  writer  Jesus 
Christ  was  the  Key  to  God  ;  He  was  God 
manifest  in  the  flesh.  It  was  not  some 
fantastic  dream  of  the  Christ  of  which  he 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  JOHN 


111 


spake  these  things,  it  was  the  very  Jesus 
of  whom  Matthew,  Mark,  and  Luke  had 
been  writing,  and  of  whom  he  too  was 
able  to  write,  as  a  man  amongst  men, 
moving  in  and  out  among  them,  doing 
and  saying  strange  things,  but  all  the 
time  one  of  themselves.  And  it  was  this 
Jesus  who  to  him  was  the  Christ,  the 
Word  of  God,  the  last  and  complete  ex¬ 
pression  of  God’s  grace,  power,  and  truth 
to  the  children  of  men. 

Then  as  to  His  relation  to  men.  The 
book  contains  a  series  of  wonderful  allegories 
expounding  the  relation  of  Jesus  Christ 
to  the  children  of  men.  He  is,  for  instance, 
the  Bread  of  Life.  Men  must  eat  His 
flesh  and  drink  His  blood  if  they  would 
live  indeed.  It  is  objected  that  this  involves 
a  high  sacramental  doctrine  which  would 
be  an  anachronism  in  the  writer  of  this 
Gospel.  But  it  is  needless  to  read  into  the 
words  anything  more  than  their  plain  surface 
meaning,  “  I  am  the  Bread  of  Life  ” — 
the  daily  Food  of  our  humanity.  Eating 


112  THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  JOHN 

Him,  assimilating  Him,  making  Him  ours, 
we  shall  be  able  to  live,  and  obtain  the 
strength  we  need.  We  shall  grow,  and 
only  so  be  able  to  grow.  As  Jesus  is  the 
Bread,  so  also  He  is  the  Water  of  life, 
and  they  who  drink  of  this  Water  shall 
never  thirst.  The  simile  is  full  of  meaning. 
Jesus  knows  and  answers  all  needs  of 
this  humanity  of  ours.  According  to  this 
writer,  in  Jesus  Christ  is  the  answer  of 
every  human  desire,  and  the  quenching  of 
all  human  thirst.  He  has  before  his  mind 
the  familiar  picture  of  the  whole  of  humanity, 
all  through  the  ages,  thirsting  for  God. 
“  As  the  hart  panteth  after  the  water- 
brooks,  so  panteth  my  soul  after  Thee,  0 
God.  My  soul  thirsteth  for  God,  for  the 
living  God  ;  when  shall  I  come  and  appear 
before  God  ?  55  The  answer  to  this  cry, 
he  says,  is  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  it  has  never 
been  answered  in  any  better  way,  and 
never  can  be.  46  He  that  drinketh  of  this 
water  shall  never  thirst.” 

Then  Jesus  is  the  good  Shepherd,  the 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  JOHN 


113 


Shepherd  of  His  sheep :  “  He  giveth  His 
life  for  the  sheep.”  That,  again,  is  another 
far-reaching  and  expressive  image.  He  takes 
care  of  His  people,  tends  them,  is  their 
Guide,  their  Saviour,  their  Friend,  stands 
between  them  and  their  peril,  delivers  them 
at  the  sacrifice  of  Himself.  It  is  some¬ 
times  too  readily  supposed  that  the  doc¬ 
trines  of  the  Person  of  Jesus  Christ  were 
the  growth  of  speculation  in  the  fourth 
century.  But  there  is  a  great  deal  of 
doctrine,  when  we  come  to  examine  it,  in 
this  Gospel  of  St.  John,  which  was  written 
long  before  the  fourth  century.  There  are 
to  be  found  here  the  seeds,  the  beginnings 
of  all  that  interpretation  of  Jesus  on  which 
the  thought  of  the  Christian  Church  has 
been  built  all  through  the  ages  until  now. 
There  is  the  parable  of  the  Vine  and  the 
Branches,  teaching  us  that  His  disciples 
are  to  be  knit  to  Him  so  closely  that  the  life 
sap  shall  come  through  Him  into  their 
lives,  and  that  their  lives  shall  be  utterlv 

and  absolutely  dependent  upon  Him — the 

8 


114  THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  JOHN 

closest  possible  connection  of  a  very  wonder¬ 
ful  and  even  miraculous  kind.  Here  as  well 
as  in  the  teaching  of  St.  Paul  is  the  doctrine 
of  the  mystical  union  of  the  soul  of  man 
with  Christ. 

As  Dr.  Fairbairn  says :  “  The  abstract 
terms,  Word,  Light,  Life,  Spirit,  are  not 
abstract  to  him  \i.e.  to  St.  John]  :  they 
have  all  a  mystic  personal  quality.  Out 
of  them  looks  the  face  of  Jesus,  and  His 
look  was  love.  And  so  it  was  but  natural 
that  the  history  should  be  to  John  most  real 
where  it  was  most  symbolical.  Christ  was 
to  him  in  very  truth  the  Son  of  God,  and 
God  the  Father  of  Jesus  Christ.”  1 

We  must  now  try  to  estimate  the  signi¬ 
ficance  of  such  a  picture  of  Jesus  Christ, 
wrought  out  of  the  experience  of  this  disciple, 
and  set  forth  here  before  the  world  not  very 
long  after  Jesus  Christ  Himself  had  died, 
when  men  who  had  known  Him  were  perhaps 
even  living  still.  When  we  come  to  examine 
it  in  relation  to  the  similar  testimony  of 


1  Christ  in  Modern  Theology,  p.  346. 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  JOHN 


115 


a  man  like  the  Apostle  Paul,  are  we  not 
forced  to  the  conclusion  that  when  the 
human  soul  comes  to  reflect  upon  Jesus 
Christ,  and  by  following  Him  to  obtain 
experience  of  His  grace  and  power,  the 
result  is  always  the  same  ?  There  is  the 
same  exalted  impression  of  His  power, 
the  same  utter  dependence  upon  His  grace, 
the  same  recognition  of  the  divine  in  Him. 

There  are  two  words  in  this  Gospel  which 
are  very  frequently  used.  The  first  is  the 
word  44  believe,”  and  the  second  the  word 
44  witness.”  Men  are  asked  to  believe  in 
Jesus.  44  To  those  that  believe  ”  is  the 
promise  of  the  Gospel  given.  The  writer 
does  not  say  that  the  mystery  of  Jesus 
Christ  is  made  manifest  to  the  clever  and 
the  wise  ;  he  does  not  say  that  the  secret 
of  Jesus  Christ  is  declared  even  to  those 
who  simply  seek  it,  but  he  does  say  that 
it  is  made  manifest  to  him  who  believes. 
That  is  the  challenge  which  the  Person  of 
Jesus  Christ  still  throws  out.  It  is  “who¬ 
soever  believeth.”  That  with  us  has  become 


116  THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  JOHN 

almost  a  cant  phrase.  It  is  an  easy  kind  of 
thing  to  say  in  a  sermon  or  at  a  revival 
meeting,  but  there  is  a  meaning  behind  it, 
and  we  need  to  get  back  to  the  original 
and  true  meaning  of  it.  To  believe  in 
Jesus  Christ  is  to  do  something  more  than 
think  about  Him  and  to  have  an  opinion 
concerning  Him.  It  means  to  bow  before 
Him  in  reverence  ;  to  take  Him  at  His  word  ; 
to  do  His  will  ;  to  begin  walking  in  His 
way ;  to  make  the  great  surrender ;  to 
accept  His  teaching  as  though  it  were  true, 
and  prove  by  practising  it.  The  man  who 
so  deals  with  Christ  is  the  man  who  in  the 
end  finds  out  His  secret  and  is  able  to  say, 
“  My  Lord  and  my  God.”  He  then  be¬ 
comes  a  witness  to  His  name.  What  he 
has  found  in  Jesus  Christ  for  himself,  he  is 
constrained  to  make  known  to  others.  “  He 
believes  and  therefore  also  he  speaks.”  He 
cannot  but  make  known  the  things  he  has 
seen  and  heard.  The  attitude  is  one  with 
which  we  are  familiar,  but  we  can  readily 
understand  how  exalted  must  be  the  posi- 


THE  CHRIST  OF  ST.  JOHN 


117 


tion  of  one  who  is  held  worthy  of  this  faith 
and  of  this  testimony.  This  is  the  attitude 
which  the  writer  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  takes 
up  towards  Jesus  Christ.  He  is  the  object 
of  faith,  and  his  own  function  among  men 
is  to  bear  witness  to  His  glory.  The  two 
things  together,  belief  and  witnessing,  be¬ 
come  the  proof  of  Jesus  Christ  to  the  soul, 
but  they  are  also  evidence  of  His  divine 
power  and  claims.  As  Hermann  Schultz 
has  said  :  “  Faith  in  the  historical  Christ 
does  not  at  all  involve  deciding  points  of 
historical  science,  as,  for  instance,  the 
problems  with  which  the  investigations  of 
the  life  of  Jesus  have  to  deal.  It  is  not  at 
all  a  question  of  anything  that  scientific 
criticism  could  throw  doubt  upon,  of  any¬ 
thing  merely  past  :  but  of  an  active  person¬ 
ality  that  has  stamped  itself  as  living  on  the 
spiritual  history  of  man,  and  whose  reality 
as  it  is  in  itself  any  one  can  test  by  its 
effects,  as  immediately  as  he  can  test  the 
reality  of  the  nature  that  surrounds  him 
and  the  relations  in  which  he  stands.” 


CHAPTER  IV 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  APOCALYPSE 


CHAPTER  IV 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  APOCALYPSE 

The  Revelation  of  Jesus  Christ,  which  God  gave  unto 
Him,  to  show  unto  His  servants  things  which  must  shortly 
come  to  pass  ;  and  He  sent  and  signified  it  by  His  angel 
unto  His  servant  John. — Rev.  i.  1. 

rTlHIS  book  of  Revelation  stands  by 
itself  in  the  New  Testament.  It  is 
a  very  familiar  book,  and  to  many  it  is 
very  attractive,  and  yet  its  secret  is  a  very 
hard  one  to  discover.  It  is  a  product  of 
the  prophetic  spirit,  and  we  have  not  the 
key  to  the  prophecy  which  it  contains.  It 
purports  to  be  written  by  one  John ;  and  the 
first  question  that  arises  is  as  to  the  identity 
of  its  author.  The  traditional  view  is  that 
it  is  the  same  John  who  wrote  the  Gospel 
and  the  Epistles:  John  the  apostle,  the 

disciple  whom  Jesus  loved,  the  son  of 

121 


122  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  APOCALYPSE 


Zebedee.  But  it  is  very  difficult  indeed  to 
believe  that  this  book  was  written  by  the 
hand  that  wrote  the  Fourth  Gospel.  There 
is  the  same  contrast  here  that  is  found 
in  the  Gospels  themselves.  This  disciple 
whom  Jesus  loved,  and  who  leaned  on 
Jesus’  bosom,  was  also,  we  are  told,  the 
disciple  who  was  called  Boanerges,  the  Son 
of  Thunder.  He  might  well  have  written 
the  book  of  Revelation  as  Boanerges  the 
Son  of  Thunder.  There  is  something  of 
the  passion  and  exaltation  and  power  and 
threatening  of  the  book  that  a  Son  of 
Thunder  would  write.  But  it  is  as  difficult 
to  imagine  the  Son  of  Thunder  writing  the 
Fourth  Gospel  as  it  is  to  imagine  the  disciple 
whom  Jesus  loved  writing  the  Apocalypse. 
This,  however,  is  not  the  only  difficulty. 
The  language  in  which  the  Fourth  Gospel 
is  written  is  smooth,  easy,  good  Greek ; 
the  language  in  which  the  Revelation,  or 
Apocalypse,  is  written  is  rough,  ungram¬ 
matical,  and  colloquial  Greek ;  and  it  is  quite 
evident  that  in  some  parts  of  it  the  writer 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  APOCALYPSE  123 


was  thinking  in  Hebrew  while  he  wrote  in 
Greek.  There  is  an  entire  contrast  be¬ 
tween  the  language  of  the  two  books.  There 
is  a  similar  contrast  in  the  thought  of  the 
two  books.  In  the  Apocalypse  the  kingdom 
of  God  is  generally  described  as  future, 
while  in  the  Gospel  it  is  regarded  as  ideally 
present  among  men. 

It  should  be  noted,  however,  that  in 
addition  to  these  points  of  difference  there 
is  this  curious  phenomenon,  that  the  language 
and  phraseology  of  the  book  recall  con¬ 
stantly  the  language  and  phraseology  of 
the  Fourth  Gospel,  and  the  aspect  which  is 
given  to  Jesus  Christ  in  the  book  is  again 
and  again  the  aspect  given  to  Him  in  the 
Fourth  Gospel.1  It  is  not  therefore  to  be 
wondered  at  that  opinions  on  the  book 
should  be  very  much  divided.  Some  believe 
that  John  wrote  all  the  books  that  are 

1  Speaking  of  the  linguistic  evidence,  Swete  says  :  “It 
creates  a  strong  presumption  of  affinity  between  the  Fourth 
Gospel  and  the  Apocalypse,  notwithstanding  their  great 
diversity  both  in  language  and  in  thought.” — The  Apocalypse 
of  St.  John ,  p.  cxxv. 


124  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  APOCALYPSE 

known  by  his  name  in  the  New  Testament ; 
others  believe  that  some  were  written  by 
the  Apostle,  and  some  by  John  the  Presbyter, 
that  John  of  Asia  who  is  so  strange  and 
evanescent  a  figure  in  early  church  history, 
but  who  seems  to  solve  a  good  many 
difficulties.  Some  think  that  he  wrote  the 
Apocalypse  and  that  the  Apostle  wrote  the 
Gospel ;  some  think  that  the  Apostle  wrote 
the  Apocalypse  and  the  Presbyter  wrote 
the  Gospel ;  and  the  question  must  still  be 
regarded  as  sub  judice .  For  us,  however, 
it  does  not  really  matter  who  wrote  the 
book.  Its  power,  its  inspiration,  its  teach¬ 
ing?  its  use  for  us  do  not  depend  upon  our 
being  able  to  attach  it  with  any  accuracy 
to  some  historic  or  apostolic  name,  but 
rather  depend  upon  the  appeal  which  the 
book  makes  to  men  and  the  response  which 
men  make  to  that  appeal. 

So,  putting  the  question  of  authorship  on 
one  side,  we  come  to  the  question  of  date  ; 
and  here,  without  entering  into  particulars, 
we  may  assume  that  we  must  look  for  the 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  APOCALYPSE  125 


date  of  this  book  about  the  year  a.d.  90. 
Roughly  speaking,  the  book  must  lie  between 
the  years  a.d.  70  and  90;  and  there  are 
good  reasons  for  believing  that  it  must  lie 
nearer  the  year  a.d.  90  than  a.d.  70.  It 
seems  to  represent  a  time  when  the  Church 
had  some  kind  of  organisation  and  some 
kind  of  standing,  a  time  of  persecution, 
and  a  time  when  persecution  had  already 
grown  old. 

And  so  we  come  to  the  question,  Why 
was  the  book  written,  and  to  what  class 
of  literature  does  it  belong  ?  This  is  the 
really  important  point.  It  is  an  apocalypse, 
a  revelation.  It  purports  to  contain  the 
words  of  Jesus  Christ  through  His  angel,  to 
His  servant,  for  His  Church,  and  it  belongs 
to  a  large  class  of  literature.  Much  of  this 
literature  has  only  been  discovered  and 
made  available  within  comparatively  recent 
times ;  and  we  know  now  how  a  book  like 
this  springs,  as  it  were,  largely  out  of  the 
seething  under- world  of  vision  and  revelation 
that  was  common  to  the  Jewish  and  to  the 


126  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  APOCALYPSE 


Jewish  Christian  people  of  the  time.  It 
has  close  affinities  with  many  similar  books, 
like  the  Assumption  of  Moses,  the  Book  of 
Enoch,  and  the  Book  of  Esdras,  all  of  them 
strange  and  obscure  writings,  of  the  meaning 
of  which  we  still  know  very  little,  yet 
which  are  closely  paralleled  by  much  that 
we  find  in  this  book.  And  it  was  a  class  of 
literature  that  sprang  out  of  the  circum¬ 
stances  of  the  day.  It  is  a  tract  for  the 
times,  and  a  tract  of  the  times.  It  comes 
from  the  very  need  of  the  people,  and  it  is 
addressed  to  the  need  of  the  people.  One 
theory  regarding  the  book  of  Revelation  is 
that  it  is  a  Jewish  apocalypse  worked  up 
by  a  Christian  writer ;  another  is  that 
portions  of  a  Jewish  apocalypse  have  been 
embodied  in  this  book  of  ours.  But  whether 
that  be  so  or  not,  it  is  certain  that  the  book 
contains  a  very  strong  Jewish  element,  and 
that  throughout  it  a  thread  of  Christian 
teaching  runs,  even  if  it  is  extremely  difficult 
to  disentangle  that  thread  at  any  particular 
point.  The  book  is  penetrated  with  the 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  APOCALYPSE  127 


Christian  spirit,  even  though  the  back¬ 
ground  of  the  writer’s  mind  be  strongly 
Jewish.1  All  this  explains  how  the  book 
is  to  be  related  to  the  general  mass  of 
apocalyptic  literature,  and  it  gives  the  key 
to  most  of  its  peculiarities,  and  to  some  of 
its  difficulties.  It  helps  us  to  see  that  those 

1  “  It  is  not  only  in  regard  to  pseudonymity  and  other 
matters  of  literary  form  that  our  apocalyptist  differs  from 
his  Jewish  predecessors  :  the  cleavage  goes  deeper.  What¬ 
ever  view  may  be  taken  of  his  indebtedness  to  Jewish  sources, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  has  produced  a  book  which, 
taken  as  a  whole,  is  profoundly  Christian,  and  widely 
removed  from  the  field  in  which  Jewish  apocalyptic 
occupied  itself.  The  narrow  sphere  of  Jewish  national 
hopes  has  been  exchanged  for  the  life  and  aims  of  a  society 
whose  field  is  the  world  and  whose  goal  is  the  conquest 
of  the  human  race.  The  Jewish  Messiah,  an  uncertain 
and  unrealised  idea,  has  given  place  to  the  historical 
personal  Christ,  and  the  Christ  of  the  Christian  Apocalypse 
is  already  victorious,  ascended,  and  glorified.  Thus  the 
faith  and  hope  of  the  Church  have  diverted  apocalyptic 
thought  into  new  channels,  and  provided  it  with  ends 
worthy  of  its  pursuit.  The  tone  of  St.  John’s  book  pre¬ 
sents  a  contrast  to  the  Jewish  apocalypses  which  is  not 
less  marked.  It  breathes  a  religious  spirit  which  is  not 
that  of  its  predecessors  ;  it  is  marked  with  the  sign  of  the 
Cross ;  the  note  of  patient  suffering,  unabashed  faith, 
tender  love  of  the  brethren,  hatred  of  evil,  invincible 
hope.” — Swete,  The  Apocalypse  of  St.  John,  p.  25. 


128  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  APOCALYPSE 


things  in  the  book  which  to  the  modern 
mind  are  so  strange  and  so  difficult  to  com¬ 
prehend,  had  their  place  and  part  in  the 
thought  of  the  people  at  the  time  when  the 
book  was  written,  and  were  not  altogether 
obscure  to  them. 

We  may  venture  to  suggest  that  it  is  an 
altogether  useless  exercise  to  try  and  ex¬ 
plain  the  visions  which  this  book  contains. 
The  explanation  of  a  few  of  them  lies,  no 
doubt,  on  the  surface,  and  we  may  take  it 
and  use  it  for  what  it  is  worth.  We  cannot 
tell  exactly  what  the  seals,  the  beasts  and 
the  trumpets  and  the  candlesticks  and  all 
these  strange  figures  portended ;  and  we  do 
not  need  to  know.  The  attempt  to  identify 
this  or  that  figure  in  the  book  with  this  or 
that  historical  figure  or  event  ( e.g .  Napoleon 
or  the  French  Revolution)  is  manifestly 
absurd.  What  we  have  to  do  is  rather  to 
try  and  discover  the  teaching  of  this  book 
for  the  people  of  the  day,  that  we  may  be 
able,  through  them  and  through  our  know¬ 
ledge  of  their  circumstances  and  of  their 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  APOCALYPSE  129 


experience,  to  discover  what  such  a  book 
may  have  to  say  to  us.  That  is  something 

o 

we  can  easily  and  ought  gladly  to  do.  What 
was  it  that  this  book  was  written  to  effect  ? 
The  student  of  the  book  will  do  well  to  mark 
carefully  those  letters  to  the  seven  Churches 
with  which  the  book  begins.  The  writer, 
a  man  of  authority  in  the  Asian  Churches,  a 
man  who  had  some  kind  of  justification  for 
speaking,  and  for  speaking  as  he  did,  writes 
in  the  name  of  Christ — in  the  name  of  the 
living,  exalted  Christ — to  these  Churches,  and 
he  writes  to  them  because  of  the  situation 
in  which  they  find  themselves.  They  are 
persecuted,  cast  down,  tormented  ;  evil  is 
at  work  among  them  ;  they  have  lost  their 
first  love ;  corruption  has  entered  into 
their  midst ;  they  are  in  peril  of  apostasy ; 
they  are  as  sheep  in  the  midst  of  wolves. 
These  Churches  are  small  Christian  com¬ 
munities,  situated  in  a  heathen  world.  All 
round  them  is  the  persecuting  power  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  which  to  the  mind  of  the 

writer  appears  portentous  and  awful  in  its 

9 


130  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  APOCALYPSE 

majesty  and  in  its  might.  This  empire  owns 
no  king  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  will  set  up  the 
emperor,  a  mere  man  of  straw  and  clay,  and 
force  these  poor  Christians  to  worship  him 
or  to  die  the  death.  The  writer  of  the  apo¬ 
calypse  had  a  keen  sense  of  the  horror  and 
wickedness  of  this  position,  of  the  degrada¬ 
tion  that  it  meant  to  human  nature,  and  of 
the  insult  it  offered  to  Jesus  Christ.  And 
so  he  writes  his  word  of  encouragement,  of 
authority,  of  warning,  and  of  denunciation. 
He  is  now  the  Son  of  Thunder.  His  power¬ 
ful  and  vehement  words  are,  to  use  his  own 
picturesque  phrases,  like  a  great  sharp  sword 
coming  out  of  his  mouth,  and  a  flame  of  fire 
coming  out  of  his  eyes,  and  evil-doers  whom 
he  assails  are  scorched  and  pierced  by  them. 
But  the  fire  of  his  words  not  only  scorches, 
it  redeems  and  sanctifies.  Those  who  seek 
God,  and  those  who  seek  forgiveness,  shall 
find  all  that  they  seek.  Those  who  die  in  the 
Lord  are  blessed.  The  flame  of  persecution 
may  come  and  wither  the  life  out  of  a  man, 
but  the  man  still  lives.  He  has  died  in  the 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  APOCALYPSE  131 


Lord,  for  Christ’s  sake,  in  Christ’s  cause ; 
and  the  words  spoken  to  these  poor  folk,  who 
were  in  daily  peril  of  such  death,  are  the 
greatest,  the  most  comforting,  and  most 
assuring  words  in  all  Scripture.  They  have 
been  chosen  by  Christian  people  and  by  the 
Christian  Church  from  that  day  to  this  as 
the  best  words  of  comfort  for  those  who 
mourn.  And  thus  there  is  given  to  these 
people  in  persecution  a  glowing  assurance 
of  the  final  triumph  of  Christ  and  of  His 
kingdom.  It  cannot  be,  it  shall  not  be, 
that  even  though  this  great  Roman  Empire 
may  triumph  for  the  moment,  the  empire  of 
the  King  of  kings  shall  fail.  The  note  that 
runs  through  the  book  is  one  of  astonish¬ 
ing  faith,  and  is  one  of  absolute  assurance; 
and  there  is  nothing  in  all  Christian  litera¬ 
ture  better  calculated  than  this  to  uplift 
and  hearten  the  children  of  God  in  the  time 
of  their  need. 

But  we  turn  now  to  our  more  special 
subject.  What  is  the  delineation  of  Jesus 
Christ  which  we  find  in  such  a  book  as  this  ? 


132  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  APOCALYPSE 

It  should  be  noted  that  the  picture  of  Jesus 
Christ  drawn  here  is  altogether  characteristic 
of  the  writer.  We  have  already  seen  how 
men  had  begun  to  conceive  Jesus  as  the 
Christ  within  a  comparatively  short  time  of 
His  life  here  on  earth.  Here  we  are  at  a 
time  removed  by  some  decades  from  the 
life  and  teaching  of  Jesus  Christ  Himself. 
We  are  dealing  with  people  who  have  known 
Him  and  worshipped  Him  and  formed 
churches  in  His  name  for  some  years  past ;  we 
are  dealing  with  people  who  have  learned  to 
stand  up  for  Jesus  Christ  against  the  power 
of  the  persecutor,  and  learned  that  it  was 
better  to  die  for  Christ  than  live  for  the 
world,  the  flesh,  or  the  devil.  It  is  natural, 
therefore,  to  ask  what  attitude  these  people 
took  up  to  Jesus  Christ,  and  what  their 
teachers  told  them  about  Him.  It  is  prob¬ 
ably  true,  as  one  modern  writer  says,  that 
this  book  gives  us  a  better  idea  than  any 
other  part  of  the  New  Testament  of  the  way 
in  which  Jesus  Christ  was  actually  preached 
to  the  people  of  the  early  Church.  He  is 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  APOCALYPSE  133 

to  them  the  First  and  the  Last,  the  Alpha 
and  the  Omega,  the  Beginning  and  the  End  ; 
He  is  the  King  of  kings,  the  Lord  of  lords  ; 
He  is  at  the  right  hand  of  God ;  He  is  the 
Lamb  in  the  midst  of  the  throne  ;  He  is  the 
one  Power  in  heaven  and  on  earth  with 
whom  they  have  most  to  do  ;  He  is  God’s 
Vicegerent ;  He  is  God’s  Word ;  He  is 
God’s  Messenger,  Prophet,  and  Priest,  and 
He  is  King  and  Lord  over  all.  And  this  is 
the  historic  Christ.  All  through  this  book 
there  is  traceable  the  fact  that  the  writer 
was  in  close  touch  with  the  memory  of  the 
historic  Jesus.  He  is  not  simply  making 
for  himself  a  fiction  of  the  imagination.  He 
is  idealising,  he  is  translating  into  the 
highest  forms,  so  to  speak,  the  figure  of  the 
historic  Jesus — One  who  was  dead,  but  is 
now  alive  for  evermore.  That  picture  of 
which  we  read  in  the  first  chapter,  “  One 
like  unto  a  Son  of  man,  clothed  with  a 
garment  down  to  the  foot,  and  girt  about 
the  breasts  with  a  golden  girdle.  His  head 
and  His  hair  were  white  like  wool,  as  white 


134  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  APOCALYPSE 


as  snow,  and  His  eyes  were  as  a  flame  of 
fire,”  is  idealistic  ;  but  behind  that  there  is 
a  human  figure,  and  behind  the  whole  book 
there  is  to  be  found  the  historical  Jesus.  To 
these  people,  their  imagination,  their  faith, 
their  need,  and  their  patience,  this  Jesus  had 
become  highly  exalted,  “ ‘  the  chief  among 
ten  thousand,  the  altogether  lovely,”  the 
Person  in  heaven  and  earth  with  whom 
they  were  chiefly  concerned,  and  the  Power 
which  was  able  to  help  them  in  the  time  of 
their  need.  There  is  no  doubt  that  Jesus 
Christ  had  come  to  have  to  these  people  in 
their  day  of  tribulation  the  religious  value 
of  God.  He  was  to  them  the  Way  of  Life, 
the  Shepherd  of  the  sheep,  the  Lamb  slain 
from  the  foundation  of  the  world,  the  One 
who  was  able  to  make  of  men  and  women 
kings  and  priests  unto  God.  This  is  the 
significant  thing ;  and  in  this  figure  of  the 
Christ,  in  this  conception  of  the  Christ, 
these  people  found  their  comfort  and  their 
strength.  Knowing  Him  as  they  did,  be¬ 
lieving  in  Him  as  they  did,  they  were  ready 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  APOCALYPSE  135 

and  glad  to  die  for  Him  ;  knowing  Him  and 
believing  in  Him  as  they  did,  they  felt  that 
to  live  for  Him  and  in  His  confession  was  the 
greatest  possible  thing  they  could  do.  And 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  strange  and  surprising 
as  their  conception  of  Him  may  seem,  was 
known  by  the  men  and  women  of  the  early 
Church  as  a  living  presence  and  a  power 
that  made  them  the  men  and  women  they 
were. 

If  we  attempt  to  analyse  the  conception 
of  Jesus  Christ  that  is  given  here,  something 
of  the  following  kind  must  be  said.  There 
is  no  Christology  in  the  book,  or,  rather,  no 
definite  and  organised  Christology.  There 
is  no  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  writer  to 
give  systematic  shape  and  form  to  his  con¬ 
ception.  It  has  to  be  pieced  together  from 
many  scattered  references.  It  comes  in 
flashes,  and  it  is  not  in  any  sense  an  ordered 
and  recognised  doctrine.  But  on  certain 
points  the  teaching  of  the  writer  is  clear. 
We  find  that  Jesus  Christ  was  to  His  Church, 
as  He  was  to  St.  Paul,  a  continual  and 


136  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  APOCALYPSE 


abiding  presence.  These  early  Christians 
did  not  believe  in  a  dead  Christ.  They  did 
not  look  back  wistfully  to  the  grave  in 
the  Garden  and  seek  Him  there.  He  was 
with  them,  their  Friend  and  Saviour,  their 
continual  help,  and  they  saw  Him,  many 
of  them,  descending  from  heaven  in  the 
smoke  of  their  martyr  fires  ;  they  felt 
Him  present  by  their  racked  and  tortured 
frames  ;  He  spoke  to  them  healing  words, 
and  gave  them  His  strength.  To  His  Church 
He  was  the  source  and  ground  of  salvation 
and  of  life. 

And  this  Christ  was  to  them  also  the 
Prophet  of  God.  In  Him  they  found  the 
very  Word  of  God  to  their  souls.  The 
Logos,  that  great  conception  of  which  their 
minds  were  so  full,  was  incarnate  in  Him 
and  became  to  them  God’s  Word,  and  they 
listened  to  what  He  had  to  say  as  to  the 
very  Voice  of  God.  To  these  Christians 
Christ  was  the  Word,  not  in  any  technical 
or  metaphysical  sense,  but  as  imparting  to 
them  the  truth  of  God.  He  was  to  them 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  APOCALYPSE  137 

the  Truth  as  well  as  the  Way,  and  in  His 
word  they  found  their  law'  of  life. 

And  then  again,  Jesus  was  to  these 
men  the  great  High-priest.  Sometimes  they 
conceived  Him  as  the  Victim  and  the 
Sacrifice,  but  always  as  the  great  Inter¬ 
cessor,  who  stands  between  God  and  man. 
He  is  the  Lamb  in  the  midst  of  the  throne, 
and  He  receives,  forgives,  and  comforts  His 
people.  There  is  nothing  in  the  whole  Bible 
stronger  than  the  teaching  which  we  find 
in  this  book  about  the  intercessory  and 
atoning  work  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  He 
takes  there  the  great  prerogative  of  God. 
The  Son  of  man  hath  power  on  earth  to 
forgive  sins.  The  book  is  penetrated 
throughout  with  that  idea,  and  it  was  one 
of  the  ideas  that  had  come  home  to  the  heart 
of  the  Christian  Church  concerning  Jesus 
Christ,  that  in  Him  alone  is  forgiveness  to 
be  found. 

And  then  He  is  the  King  of  kings.  The 
writer  displays  his  powers  of  imagination 
most  vividly  in  depicting  the  great  con- 


138  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  APOCALYPSE 

summation  of  all  things  in  Jesus  Christ,  of 
the  City  of  God  sent  down  from  heaven,  of 
the  New  Jerusalem,  when  God’s  rule  shall 
be  established  in  righteousness.  This  book 
is  the  great  missionary  book  in  the  Bible, 
though  the  fact  is  not  always  recognised. 
It  looks  forward  to  the  time  when  Christ 
shall  reign  everywhere  and  over  every  one  ; 
to  the  time  when  God’s  kingdom  shall  be 
perfected,  when  every  knee  shall  bow  to  Jesus 
and  every  tongue  shall  call  Him  Lord  ;  and  it 
looks  forward  to  that  time  not  as  to  some 
infinitely  distant  vision,  but  as  a  practical 
reality.  In  those  days  Christians  generally, 
like  the  writer  of  this  book,  felt  that  they 
had  a  part  in  this  great  business.  It  would 
be  well  if  the  Christian  Church  to-day  had 
anything  like  the  missionary  vision  which 
these  old  saints,  these  persecuted  saints, 
had.  If  there  were  anything  like  this  belief 
in  Jesus  Christ  and  His  power  in  the  Chris¬ 
tian  Church  at  the  present  time  the  mis¬ 
sionary  interest  would  occupy  a  far  larger 
place  in  our  thoughts  than  it  does.  There 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  APOCALYPSE  139 

are  few  things  in  the  New  Testament  more 
remarkable  than  the  wide  vision  of  the  early 
Church  and  her  splendid  faith  in  the  adapta¬ 
bility  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  to  the 
needs  of  the  whole  world.  Modern  Christians 
should  keep  this  example  before  them.  They 
should  be  as  eager  as  their  fathers  were  to 
make  the  Word  of  this  Christ,  who  is  King 
of  kings,  known  throughout  the  length  and 
breadth  of  the  earth.  It  may  be  ques¬ 
tioned  sometimes  whether  Christians  now 
really  believe,  as  the  writer  of  this  book 
most  assuredly  believed,  that  Jesus  Christ 
will  reign  for  ever  and  ever.  Do  they 
think  it  is  possible  or  practicable  that  the 
whole  world,  every  nation,  tribe,  and  tongue, 
shall  come  under  the  dominion  of  Jesus 
Christ  ?  Until  they  have  attained  to  this 
faith  they  are  not  likely  to  possess  the 
power  of  the  men  to  whom  this  apocalypse 
was  first  addressed. 

This  book  also  makes  Jesus  Christ  not 
only  the  future  King  of  the  universe,  but  the 
guarantee  of  the  everlasting  life  of  the 


140  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  APOCALYPSE 


children  of  men.  We  are  all  familiar  with 
those  exquisite  words  in  which  the  writer 
speaks  of  the  life  beyond  the  grave — words 
of  comfort  and  hope  that  have  come  home 
to  men  and  women  so  often  since.  We  do 
not  need  to  be  reminded  that  this  is  all 
attached  to  J esus  Christ,  to  His  resurrection, 
and  to  the  life  that  He  imparts  through 
love  and  faith  in  His  name.  The  complaint 
is  sometimes  heard  that  the  belief  in  im¬ 
mortality  is  dying  out  of  the  Christian 
Church  at  the  present  time.  This  is  per¬ 
haps  natural  among  those  to  whom  the 
lines  have  fallen  in  pleasant  places  :  but  in 
days  of  persecution,  when  death  is  always 
near,  and  sometimes  even  preferable  to  life, 
the  belief  in  immortality  will  revive.  It 
was  strong  enough  in  those  days  when  men 
and  women  went  gladly  to  be  burned  or  to 
the  wild  beasts  in  the  arena ;  and  it  says 
much  for  their  attitude  to  Jesus  Christ  that 
He  was  able  to  guarantee  to  them  a  hope 
wrhich  lifted  them  above  both  fear  and 
shame.  They  believed  that  at  His  final 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  APOCALYPSE  141 

coming  all  things  would  be  made  new, 
wrong  would  be  redressed,  and  sorrow  and 
sighing  would  flee  away.  Speaking  gener¬ 
ally,  then,  we  may  say  that  this  book  makes 
Jesus  Christ  divine.  The  thought  of  the 
writer  looks  back  to  One  who  was  greater 
than  any  presentation  of  Him  that  he  was 
able  to  give.  Bousset  puts  the  matter  in 
the  true  light  when  he  says,  44  What  we  have 
here  is  a  layman’s  faith  undisturbed  by  any 
theological  reflection,  a  faith  which  with 
untroubled  naivete  simply  identifies  Christ 
in  His  predicates  and  attributes  with  God, 
and,  on  the  other  hand  also  calmly  takes 
over  quite  archaic  elements.”  1  It  is  the  very 
naturalness  and  simplicity  of  this  process 
which  witnesses  to  the  greatness  of  the 
Person  who  possessed  such  a  hold  over  the 
mind  of  this  writer,  and  appealed  so  power¬ 
fully  both  to  his  imagination  and  to  his 
faith. 

1  Quoted  by  Denney  from  Die  Offenbarung  Johannis , 

p.  280, 


CHAPTER  V 


THE  TEACHING  OF  CHRIST  ABOUT 

HIMSELF 


CHAPTER  V 


THE  TEACHING  OF  CHRIST  ABOUT  HIMSELF 

Ye  call  me  Master  and  Lord,  and  ye  say  well,  for  so  I 
am. — St.  John  xiii.  13. 

J^/j^UCH  has  been  written  about  the  self- 
consciousness  of  Jesus  Christ,  and 
the  subject  is  certainly  a  fascinating  one. 
It  must  be  approached,  however,  with 
reverence,  and  needs  far  other  equipment 
than  merely  that  of  the  textual  and  his¬ 
torical  critic.  The  questions  involved  are 
of  more  than  antiquarian  interest.  They 
deeply  affect  the  interpretation  of  modern 
Christianity  and  the  religious  life  of  men. 
What  Jesus  said  to  men  about  Himself  is 
our  only  clue  to  His  own  thought  about 
Himself  and  His  mission.  But  it  is  a 
clue  that  only  leads  us  a  little  way.  On 
any  estimation  of  Him  Jesus  will  be  judged 

10 


145 


146  THE  TEACHING  OF  CHRIST 

to  be  far  above  the  average  of  His  day 
both  in  intelligence  and  in  spiritual  insight. 
His  teaching  therefore  was  necessarily  con¬ 
ditioned  by  the  capacity  of  His  hearers. 
It  was  impossible  for  Him  to  impart  to 
them  His  full  mind,  for  they  were  not 
able  to  receive  it.  The  men  of  to-day, 
with  all  their  disadvantages,  are  probably 
nearer  to  the  mind  of  Christ  than  His 
own  disciples  were.  The  centuries  of  re¬ 
ligious  experience  have  done  their  work, 
and  we  have  entered  into  the  inheritance 
they  bring.  Therefore  in  seeking  to  in¬ 
vestigate  the  testimony  of  Jesus  to  Himself, 
we  have  not  only  to  beware  of  our  own 
mental  and  spiritual  preconceptions,  but 
also  to  take  into  account  the  character  of 
the  material  with  which  He  had  to  deal, 
and  the  local  conditions  and  circumstances 
He  had  to  meet. 

But  in  addition  to  these  things  we  must 
also  give  due  weight  to  the  fact  that  it  is 
often  impossible  to  distinguish  between  the 
teaching  of  Jesus  and  the  impressions  which 


ABOUT  HIMSELF 


147 


His  reporters  formed  concerning  Him.  It 
will  be  necessary  sometimes  to  endeavour 
to  get  behind  these  impressions,  and  to 
discover,  if  possible,  how  far  they  are  based 
on  the  words  and  actions  of  Jesus  Himself. 
We  must  even  be  prepared  for  the  con¬ 
clusion  that  much  of  what  they  witness 
concerning  Him  is  the  result  of  their  own 
reflection  after  the  event  in  the  light  of 
the  religious  ideas  then  current.  On  the 
other  hand,  there  is  no  doubt  that  in  many 
of  the  records  they  give  us  we  may  trace 
directly  the  hand  or  tongue  of  Jesus  Himself. 
The  story  of  the  Temptation  is  a  case  in 
point.  It  is  impossible  to  account  for  this 
on  any  other  assumption  than  that  it 
came  direct  from  the  mouth  of  Jesus,  and 
that  it  expresses,  in  a  parabolic  form 
suited  to  the  intelligence  of  His  hearers, 
an  experience  which  to  Jesus  Himself  was 
of  immense  import  in  the  conception  of 
His  mission  on  earth.  The  form  of  it 
belongs  entirely  to  the  thought  of  His 
day,  but  behind  this  we  can  discover  ideas 


148  THE  TEACHING  OF  CHRIST 

which  were  original,  and  must  have  great 
weight  in  determining  our  interpretation  of 
the  mind  of  Christ.  Much  the  same  may 
be  said  of  the  various  presentations  of  the 
work  and  Person  of  Jesus  which  are  given 
by  the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  Here 
it  is  the  writer  who  supplies  the  form, 
while  the  ideas  again  are  those  of  J esus 
Himself.  It  is  impossible  to  doubt  that 
behind  the  familiar  terms,  Good  Shepherd, 
Bread  of  Life,  Light  of  the  World,  and  the 
like,  are  to  be  found  certain  ideas  of  Jesus 
concerning  Himself  and  His  work.  To  the 
writer  of  this  Gospel  these  ideas  appealed 
more  vividly  than  to  others.  He  under¬ 
stood  them,  and  he  uses  them  to  do  for 
others  what  they  had  done  for  him.  They 
are  not  his,  however,  though  he  gave 
them  shape.  Without  the  creative  sugges¬ 
tion  of  the  Master  they  would  not  have 
been. 

But  we  must  turn  now  to  those  more 
definite  presentations  of  Himself  which  all 
the  stories  of  Jesus  convey,  and  which 


ABOUT  HIMSELF 


149 


shine  out  as  original  through  all  the  limita¬ 
tions  of  the  records.  The  first  of  these 
is  the  name  Son  of  man,  which  was  Jesus5 
chosen  and  characteristic  name  for  Him¬ 
self.  There  is  nothing  new  about  it  but 
its  application  in  this  connection.  It  is  a 
familiar  term,  with  a  given  and  accepted 
meaning,  in  current  apocalyptic  literature. 
He,  however,  puts  His  own  interpretation 
upon  it,  so  that,  like  so  many  familiar  things, 
it  becomes  transfigured  in  His  hands.  As 
Harnack  says,  it  is  difficult  to  interpret  the 
term  without  reading  into  it  philosophical 
ideas  which  were  alien  to  the  thought  of 
Jesus.  Nevertheless  this  much  may  be  said 
— viz.  that  the  name  signified  a  unique  and 
representative  relation  to  humanity.  It  is 
often  used  in  connection  with  the  authority 
which  Jesus  claimed  to  forgive  and  save. 
It  is  connected  with  His  founding  and 
consummation  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 
It  witnesses  clearly  enough  to  His  con¬ 
sciousness  of  a  divine  prerogative  and  of  a 
power  to  be  used  in  the  service  of  mankind. 


150 


THE  TEACHING  OF  CHRIST 


In  other  words,  it  contains  within  itself 
the  seeds  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation. 
Its  frequent  and  almost  exclusive  use  in 
the  Gospels  as  our  Lord’s  designation  of 
Himself  throws,  as  Sanday  says,  “  a  vivid 
light  on  the  high  character  for  trust¬ 
worthiness  of  our  Gospels.  It  is  often 
argued  that  particular  expressions  or  ideas 
come  from  St.  Paul,  or  from  the  theology 
of  the  early  Church.  Here  is  an  ex¬ 
pression  that  certainly  does  not  come 
from  either :  the  evidence  for  it  in  any 
such  connection  is  infinitesimal.  Really 
it  can  only  go  back  to  our  Lord  Him¬ 
self,  and  it  bears  speaking  testimony  to 
the  fidelity  with  which  His  words  have 
been  preserved.”  1 

The  use  of  this  title  is  also  one  among 
many  other  indications  that  Jesus  thought 
of  Himself  as  the  Messiah.  Dalman  goes 
so  far  as  to  say,  “  The  designation  was 
chosen  by  Jesus  with  the  express  purpose 
that  the  people  might  transfer  their  thoughts 

1  The  Life  of  Christ  in  Recent  Research ,  p.  125. 


ABOUT  HIMSELF 


151 


of  the  Messiah  to  Himself.” 1  There  can 
be  no  doubt  that  in  claiming  to  be  the 
Messiah  Jesus  was  very  far  from  endorsing 
the  popular  ideas  on  the  subject.  Here, 
again,  He  read  His  own  meaning  into  the 
current  term,  and  interpreted  in  His  own 
way  the  ideas  and  hopes  of  His  contem¬ 
poraries.  In  the  New  Testament  the 
Messianic  claim  is  indicated  by  the  use  of 
the  names,  the  Christ,  Son  of  God,  Son  of 
David,  Lord,  and  the  like.  To  the  popular 
mind  the  hope  of  the  Messiah  was  intensely 
national  and  political.  It  had  also,  it  is 
true,  a  certain  eschatological  significance, 
but  this  was  secondary.  To  the  mind  of 
Jesus  Himself  the  political  significance  of 
the  idea  was  of  very  little  importance,  while 
its  spiritual  and  eschatological  meanings 
were  primary.  Jesus  read  into  the  age-long 
hopes  of  the  people  of  Jehovah  a  new 
meaning,  and  a  meaning  that  was  all  His 
own.  He  claimed  to  fulfil  these  ancient 
expectations,  but  to  fulfil  them  in  a  fashion 

1  Die  Worte  Jesu,  p.  251. 


152 


THE  TEACHING  OE  CHRIST 


which  suited  His  own  deeply  religious 
conception  of  their  needs.  The  bondage 
under  which  the  Israel  of  His  day  groaned 
was  to  Him  a  far  more  grievous  thing 
than  the  Roman  yoke,  and  the  deliverance 
which  He  brought  was  something  far  more 
than  a  political  and  social  emancipation. 
This  goes  far  to  explain  the  undoubted 
fact  that  Jesus  did  not  so  much  claim  to 
be  the  Messiah  as  accept  the  office  when  it 
was  thrust  upon  Him.  He  made  no  definite 
bid  for  the  position,  but  allowed  the  idea 
to  grow  in  the  minds  of  His  followers, 
and  seemed  Himself  to  acquiesce  in  it 
rather  than  assert  it.  We  may  agree  with 
Bousset  when  he  says  in  this  connection  : 
“  Why,  then,  this  entire  and  almost  anxious 
reluctance  ?  We  can  only  find  the  answer 
to  this  question,  in  my  opinion,  in  one 
direction.  Jesus  Himself  in  this  matter 
was  under  a  difficulty  which  He  could  not 
overcome  :  He  must  have  been  overmastered 
by  a  deep  and  immediate  feeling  that  the 
title  of  Messiah  was  quite  inadequate  to 


ABOUT  HIMSELF 


153 


express  what,  in  His  own  inner  conscious¬ 
ness,  He  knew  Himself  to  be.” 1  It  is 
therefore  almost  beside  the  mark  to  quote 
the  prophetic  and  apocalyptic  writings  as 
to  the  Messiah  in  reference  to  the  Messianic 
consciousness  of  Jesus.  These  testify  abun¬ 
dantly  to  the  nature  of  the  popular  con¬ 
ception  of  the  office  in  Israel.  But  it 
was  His  work  to  transform  that  popular 
conception,  and  read  it  afresh  in  His  own 
terms. 

How  He  did  this  can  best  be  understood 
by  studying  the  idea  of  the  kingdom  of 
God  as  He  proclaimed  it  in  relation  to  His 
own  Person  and  mission.  The  kingdom  is 
in  the  mind  of  Jesus  sometimes  the  domain 
within  which  the  Messiah  exercises  authority, 
and  sometimes  the  authority  or  rule  which 
He  exercises.  His  Gospel  is  the  Gospel  of 
the  kingdom.  In  interpreting  the  kingdom 
to  His  contemporaries  Jesus  linked  Himself 
in  thought  directly  with  the  prophets  of 
the  Old  Testament.  He  had  before  His 


1  Jesus,  p.  85. 


154 


THE  TEACHING  OF  CHRIST 


mind  the  idea  of  a  theocracy,  of  a  reign  of 
God  in  righteousness  and  peace  over  a 
holy  people.  But  while  he  laid  thus  much 
stress  on  the  notion  of  a  kingdom,  He 
repudiated  effectually,  if  tacitly,  all  those 
political  expectations  which  bulked  so  largely 
in  the  minds  of  Jews  under  the  Roman 
domination.  If  He  came  to  restore  the 
kingdom  to  Israel,  it  was  in  a  sense  of 
which  Israel  had  hardly  dreamed.  He 
looked  forward  to  a  new  earth  as  well  as 
to  a  new  heaven,  but  He  realised  that  the 
change  would  come,  not  by  means  of  any 
political  or  social  revolution,  but  by  the 
slow  working  of  the  leaven  of  God’s  Spirit 
in  human  hearts.  To  His  vision  the  king¬ 
dom  was  a  “  far-off,  divine  event,”  but  it 
was  also  “  at  hand,”  among  or  within  the 
men  to  whom  He  was  speaking.  It  needed 
to  be  recognised  and  entered  into,  and 
it  was  His  function  to  show  men  the  way. 
Thus  Jesus  described  the  conditions  of 
entrance  into  God’s  kingdom,  and  the  life 
and  atmosphere  of  the  kingdom,  in  terms 


ABOUT  HIMSELF 


155 


which  were  almost  exclusively  moral  and 
religious.  The  door  of  the  kingdom  was 
open  only  to  those  who  would  repent,  to 
the  humble  and  child-like  spirits,  the  meek, 
the  hungry,  and  the  poor.  The  benefits 
of  the  kingdom  were  not  place  and  power ; 
to  sit  at  the  right  or  left  hand  of  the 
throne  were  not  privileges  that  He  could 
give:  they  were  to  be  expressed,  rather, 
in  terms  of  the  higher  life — forgiveness, 
holiness,  peace  with  God,  and  eternal  life. 
The  aims  and  character  of  the  kingdom 
are  described  by  Jesus  in  a  series  of  in¬ 
imitable  parables,  all  of  which  go  to  show 
that  He  was  conscious  of  an  authority 
which  allowed  Him  to  be  the  interpreter 
of  the  idea  to  men.  In  phrases  like  44  My 
kingdom  is  not  of  this  world,”  and  44  He 
that  is  but  little  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
is  greater  than  John  the  Baptist,”  He 
acknowledged  His  own  rights  in  the  kingdom, 
and  at  the  same  time  clearly  distinguished 
His  conception  from  that  of  the  patriots 
and  zealots  of  His  day.  He  gave  a  strictly 


156  THE  TEACHING  OF  CHRIST 

religious  and  ethical  interpretation  to  the 
ideals  which  they  cherished.  The  references 
to  the  kingdom  in  the  literature  of  the  early 
Church,  meagre  though  they  are,  show  that 
His  teaching  in  regard  to  it  was  so  far 
at  least  understood  and  accepted  by  His 
followers,  however  alien  it  may  have  been 
to  their  preconceived  ideas  on  the  subject. 

Jesus  is  Himself  the  Key  and  the  Door  to 
the  kingdom.  Men  enter  it  by  entering 
into  relations  with  Himself.  It  is  by  re¬ 
pentance,  forgiveness,  and  faith,  and  in 
regard  to  all  these  His  action  is  crucial, 

and  His  authority  supreme.  The  life  of 

* 

the  kingdom  has  a  righteousness  of  its 
own,  but  one  that  is  more  than  a  mere 
morality,  having  its  roots  in  a  spiritual 
relation  with  God  through  Jesus  Christ. 
If  we  may  add  the  testimony  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel  to  that  of  the  Synoptists,  it  becomes 
still  clearer  that  Jesus  regarded  Himself 
both  as  the  source  and  the  sustainer  of  the 
new  life  enjoyed  by  those  who  entered  the 
kingdom  through  faith  in  His  name. 


ABOUT  HIMSELF 


157 


There  is  yet  another  respect  in  which 
Jesus’  own  conception  both  of  the  Messiah 
and  of  the  kingdom  differed  widely  from 
that  of  His  contemporaries,  and  that  is  in 
regard  to  the  place  and  function  of  His 
death.  To  the  Jew  a  crucified  Messiah  was 
a  contradiction  in  terms.  A  close  study  of 
the  Gospels  shows  that  the  necessity  for  His 
sacrificial  and  redeeming  death  occupied 
in  the  consciousness  of  Jesus  a  far  larger 
place  than  has  generally  been  supposed. 
He  came  into  the  world  to  die,  and  the 
knowledge  of  the  fact  was  with  Him  through¬ 
out.  No  doubt  it  grew  in  intensity  as  the 
tragedy  of  His  life  developed,  but  from  the 
first  it  shaped  His  conception  of  His  mission 
and  of  His  relation  to  the  world  of  men. 
Though  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  as  we  have 
it,  this  great  idea  is  only  thrown  out  inci¬ 
dentally,  it  was  evidently  so  large  a  part 
of  His  own  thought  as  to  impress  His 
followers,  and  prepare  the  way  for  that 
preaching  of  the  Cross  which  became  so 
marked  a  feature  in  the  work  of  the  early 


158 


THE  TEACHING  OP  CHRIST 


Church.  On  no  other  assumption  can  this 
be  accounted  for.  That  “  Christ  died  for 
our  sins  according  to  the  Scriptures,”  was 
no  invention  of  the  Apostles,  but  rather 
the  necessary  interpretation  of  the  facts 
forced  upon  them  by  their  remembrance  of 
the  words  and  attitude  of  Jesus  Himself. 
As  Dr.  Fairbairn  has  said :  “  We  have  to 
consider  both  the  Apostles  and  the  theory. 
It  was  a  belief  of  stupendous  originality  : 
they  were  persons  of  no  intellectual  attain¬ 
ments,  and  of  small  inventive  faculty.  So 
far  as  the  Gospels  enable  us  to  judge,  they 
are  curiously  deficient  in  imagination,  and 
of  timid  understanding.  They  were  remark¬ 
able  for  their  inability  to  draw  obvious 
conclusions,  to  transcend  the  commonplace 
and  comprehend  the  unfamiliar,  or  to  find 
a  rational  reason  for  the  extraordinary. 
Such  men  might  dream  dreams  and  see 
visions,  but  to  invent  an  absolutely  novel 
intellectual  conception  as  to  their  Master’s 
person  and  death — a  conception  that 
changed  man’s  view  of  God,  of  sin,  of 


ABOUT  HIMSELF 


159 


humanity,  of  history ;  in  a  word,  of  all 
things  human  and  divine — was  surely  a  feat 
beyond  them.”  1  That  their  conception  of 
the  death  of  Jesus  may  be  traced  to  Jesus 
Himself  is  clearly  seen  in  the  accounts 
given  in  the  Gospels  of  the  institution  of  the 
Lord’s  Supper.  The  language  used  there 
points  unmistakably  to  the  piacular  and 
consecrating  elements  in  the  Jewish  sacri¬ 
fices,  and  cannot  be  understood  without 
some  transference  of  these  ideas  to  the 
action  of  Jesus  Himself.  “  The  blood  of 
the  new  covenant  ”  is  a  phrase  which  can¬ 
not  be  interpreted  in  any  other  way.  In 
the  mind  of  Jesus  His  death  bore  a  relation 
to  human  sin  and  need  analogous  to  that 
attributed  to  the  sacrifices  and  offerings  of 
the  old  dispensation.  However  far  certain 
subsequent  interpretations  of  the  fact  may 
take  us  from  the  actual  mind  of  Christ, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  whole  con¬ 
ception  originated  with  Him.  The  fact  is 

1  “  Christ’s  Attitude  to  His  own  death,”  Expositor, 
1896,  p.  282. 


160  THE  TEACHING  OF  CHRIST 


the  more  remarkable  because  Jesus  was  not 
in  any  sense  a  gloomy  ascetic.  He  knew 
and  shared  with  other  men  the  j  oy  of  living  ; 

but  He  knew  too  the  deeper  joy  of  redemp- 

« 

tion,  sacrifice,  and  service. 

Closely  allied  with  the  claim  of  Jesus  to 
forgive  and  save  is  His  assumption  of  the 
office  of  Judge.  He  is  Himself  the  standard 
by  which  the  hearts  and  thoughts  of  men 
are  to  be  tried,  and  in  the  last  great  day 
it  is  the  Son  of  man  who  will  be  upon  the 
throne,  judging  the  quick  and  the  dead. 
We  need  not  hesitate  to  admit  that  this 
eschatological  teaching  of  Jesus  is  coloured 
by  the  temper  and  expectations  of  His  age, 
and  that  it  is  not  always  easy  to  distingush 
between  His  own  words  on  the  subject  and 
the  interpretations  of  the  evangelists.  But 
when  all  allowance  has  been  made  for  this, 
the  fact  remains  that  in  the  most  primitive 
part  of  the  Gospels  the  claim  of  Jesus  to 
come  again  in  judgment  is  both  unmistak¬ 
able  and  characteristic.  He  will  reward 
men  according  to  their  works;  He  will  sit 


ABOUT  HIMSELF 


161 


upon  the  throne  of  His  glory,  and  all  nations 
will  appear  before  Him.  He  will  separate 
the  good  from  the  evil  as  a  shepherd  divides 
the  sheep  from  the  goats.  And,  more  than 
this,  the  standard  of  judgment  will  be  the 
relation  in  which  men  and  women  in  this 
life  have  stood  towards  Himself.  44  Inas¬ 
much  as  ye  did  it  (or  did  it  not)  to  one  of 
the  least  of  these  My  brethren,  ye  did  it 
(or  did  it  not)  unto  Me.”  This  claim  was 
recognised  in  the  early  Church  in  such 
words  as  those  of  St.  Paul,  “  For  we  shall 
all  stand  before  the  judgment  seat  of  Christ.” 
There  can  be  no  question  what  this  claim 
meant  in  the  eyes  of  the  contemporaries  of 
Jesus  and  what  He  therefore  intended  to 
convey  by  it.  It  sets  the  Son  of  man  on  the 
throne  of  the  universe.  It  attributes  to 
Him  a  prerogative  which  belongs  to  God. 
It  involves,  as  has  been  said,  44  an  ascent 
from  the  throne  of  David  to  that  of  God.” 
In  the  Old  Testament  and  in  Jewish  writings 
generally  God  is  regarded  as  the  Judge  of 

all  the  earth,  and  Jesus  here  as  Messiah 

1] 


162 


THE  TEACHING  OF  CHRIST 


exercises  this  supreme  function  for  Him. 
It  is  the  most  exalted  of  the  Messianic  claims, 
and  as  Dr.  Charles  says,  “  Here  we  have  the 
Christ  of  the  Gospels  claiming  not  only  to 
fulfil  the  Old  Testament  prophecies  of  the 
various  ideals  of  the  Messiah,  but  also  to 
discharge  the  functions  of  God  Himself  in 
relation  to  the  kingdom.”  1 

What  these  and  other  similar  claims 
signified  in  the  consciousness  of  Jesus  we 
cannot  take  upon  ourselves  to  say.  It  is 
impossible,  however,  to  escape  the  conclusion 
that  in  the  eyes  of  His  contemporaries  He 
appeared  as  One  who  made  claims  for 
Himself  which  distinguished  Him  altogether 
from  the  scribes  and  teachers  with  whom 
they  were  familiar.  They  had  occasion  to 
remark  over  and  over  again  that  He  spake 
with  authority.  The  note  of  His  life  and 
teaching  was  that  of  mastery.  Though  He 
humbled  Himself,  there  was  neither  hesita¬ 
tion  nor  diffidence  about  His  tone.  He 
moved  at  ease  in  the  region  of  spiritual 

1  Expositor ,  1902,  p.  258. 


ABOUT  HIMSELF 


163 


things,  and  assumed  to  Himself  prerogatives 
that  hitherto  had  belonged  only  to  God. 
It  is  noteworthy  also,  that,  so  far  as  the 
narratives  before  us  are  concerned,  men 
seemed  to  have  no  difficulty  in  accepting 
Him  on  His  own  terms.  His  attitude  caused 
astonishment,  and  in  purely  secular  souls 
resentment  of  a  peculiarly  bitter  kind,  but 
even  the  devils  believed  and  trembled. 
There  was  that  about  His  44  Verily,  verily 
I  say  unto  you  ”  which  seemed  to  carry 
conviction  and  allay  the  spirit  of  controversy. 
The  way  in  which  the  early  Church  used 
to  44  remember  the  words  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  ”  speaks  volumes  for  the  vividness 
of  the  impression  which  those  words  made 
on  those  who  first  heard  them.  We  cannot 
now  reproduce  that  impression  or  even 
imagine  it  with  any  great  success ;  but  if  we 
wish  to  do  full  justice  to  the  situation,  we 
must  allow  for  the  result  produced,  and 
give  to  it  the  weight  which  it  deserves. 

Nor  must  we  miss  the  significance  of  the 
claims  which  Jesus  made  for  our  inter pr eta- 


164 


THE  TEACHING  OF  CHRIST 


tion  of  His  person  to-day.  That  He  offered 
Himself  as  the  Teacher,  Saviour,  and  Guide 
of  men  in  so  authoritative  a  fashion  is  not 
only  testimony  as  to  His  own  self-con¬ 
sciousness,  but  serves  to  regulate  our 
estimate  both  of  His  Person  and  His  work. 
The  attitude  which  He  thus  took  up  is 
inconsistent  with  any  presentation  of  Him 
as  a  merely  human  teacher.  It  is  one  of 
those  prerogatives  of  the  Christ  which  must 
be  attached  to  the  Jesus  of  history,  and 
without  which  the  whole  Gospel  story 
becomes  unintelligible.  The  study  of  our 
Lord’s  own  consciousness  of  His  mission 
makes  it  more  difficult  than  ever  to  draw 
the  hard-and-fast  distinction  between  Jesus 
and  the  Christ  which  finds  favour  with  so 
many  Gospel  students  at  the  present  time. 
Nor  is  it  possible  to  take  refuge  in  the 
assumption  that  the  Christ  idea  was  in  the 
air,  and  came  naturally  in  course  of  time 
to  clothe  the  Person  of  Jesus  as  His 
followers  reflected  upon  Him.  Such  a 
conclusion  does  nothing  but  violence  to 


ABOUT  HIMSELF  165 

the  facts,  and  to  the  accounts  of  the 
reluctance  with  which  the  first  preaching 
of  this  message  was  often  received.  It 
was  not  the  pious  devotion  of  the  early 
Christians  which  made  Him  the  light  and 
the  life  of  men,  and  attributed  to  Him 
saving  and  forgiving  grace.  The  founda¬ 
tion  on  which  thev  built  was  not  their  own 
hopes  and  imaginations,  but  His  own  teach¬ 
ing — teaching  which  they  indeed  were  slow 
to  receive  until  it  had  been  explained  and 
impressed  upon  them  by  a  living  experience 
of  His  power.  We  must  be  careful  lest  in 
our  anxiety  to  remove  the  obvious  diffi¬ 
culties  which  such  an  interpretation  of 
Jesus  suggests,  we  only  raise  difficulties 
which  are  more  serious,  and  at  the  same 
time  involve  ourselves  in  a  theory  which  is 
true  neither  to  history  nor  to  the  facts  of 
religious  experience.  In  this  case,  as  in  all 
others,  the  simpler  and  more  obvious  course 
is  the  best.  As  Prof.  Gwatkin  says :  “If 
we  know  anything  for  certain  about  Jesus 
of  Nazareth  it  is  that  He  steadily  claimed  to 


166 


THE  TEACHING  OF  CHRIST 


be  the  Son  of  God,  the  Redeemer  of  man¬ 
kind,  and  the  ruler  of  the  world  to  come, 
and  by  that  claim  the  Gospel  stands  or 
falls.”  1 

1  Early  Church  History ,  vol.  i.  p.  54. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  CREEDS 


CHAPTER  VI 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  CREEDS 


And  Philip  said,  If  thou  believest  with  all  thin©  heart, 
thou  mayest.  And  he  answered  and  said,  I  believe  that 
Jesus  Christ  is  the  Son  of  God. — Acts  viii.  37. 


IHIS  passage  of  Scripture  is  not  found 


in  the  text  of  the  Revised  Version. 
It  appears  there  in  the  margin,  because  it 
is  not  contained  in  the  earliest  manuscripts 
of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles ;  but  although 
that  is  the  case  there  is  no  need  to  reject 
the  verse  altogether.  It  is  interesting  and 
important,  because  it  contains  the  first 
Christian  creed.  It  is  a  baptismal  formula 
which  belongs  no  doubt  to  an  early  period, 
probably  in  the  second  century,  and  has 
crept  into  the  text  of  this  story  of  Philip 
and  the  eunuch  by  some  mistake,  but  it 


169 


170  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  CREEDS 


remains  a  very  interesting  monument  of 
the  earliest  belief  of  the  Christian  Church. 
It  may  be  regarded  as  a  creed,  because  all 
the  creeds  were  originally  baptismal  formu¬ 
las.  When  a  man  entered  the  Christian 
Church,  when  he  was  baptized  as  a  Christian, 
he  was  baptized  in  or  into  the  name  of 
J esus  Christ ;  and  if,  as  he  generally  was  in 
those  days,  of  adult  years,  he  was  asked  at 
the  same  time  to  confess  his  belief  that 
Jesus  Christ  is  the  Son  of  God.  The 
Didache  (circ.  a.d.  100)  contains  the  com¬ 
mand  to  baptize  “  in  the  name  of  the  Father, 
the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost.”  Now,  our 
study  of  the  Christology  of  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment  so  far  will  have  enabled  us  to  realise 
that  this  may  be  regarded  as  the  net  result 
of  the  thought  of  the  Church  about  Jesus 
Christ,  at  least  for  the  first  century  and  a 
half  of  its  existence.  We  have  seen  how 
men,  dwelling  on  the  story  of  His  early  life, 
teaching,  and  deeds,  had  come  to  the  belief 
thcat  there  was  in  Jesus  more  than  in 
any  other  man  who  had  ever  been;  that 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  CREEDS  171 

He  was  worthy  of  the  names  Son  of 
man  and  Son  of  God ;  that  these  names 
meant  that  He  stood  in  a  special  and  unique 
relation  to  God  upon  the  one  hand  and  to 
man  upon  the  other ;  that  He  had  come  into 
the  world  also  with  a  special  purpose,  and 
that  this  purpose  was  the  redemption  of 
the  human  race.  Therefore  men  believed 
that  He  was  not  dead,  but  alive  for  evermore ; 
that  He  was  all-powerful,  able  to  keep,  to 
sanctify,  and  to  save  His  people,  and  that 
He  was  worthy  of  the  highest  adoration 
and  worship  that  man  could  give.  Jesus 
Christ  was  in  this  sense  lifted  up  before 
the  eyes  of  the  Christian  Church  as  Son 
of  God  and  Son  of  man,  the  Saviour  of 
the  world.  But  this  explanation  or  ex¬ 
pression  of  Jesus  Christ  to  the  mind  of 
the  early  Church  was  a  process  that  was 
largely  unconscious,  and  was  generally  un- 
philosophical.  It  was  gradually  beaten  out, 
so  to  speak,  under  the  stress  of  circumstances, 
and  it  found  expression  for  itself  in  many 
more  or  less  incidental  ways.  But  we  now 


172  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  CREEDS 


come  to  a  period  when  this  attempt  to 
express  Jesus  Christ  to  the  mind  becomes 

organised  and  takes  to  itself  a  much  more 
elaborate  form. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  Church  the 
Creed,  the  expression  of  belief,  was  of  the 
simplest  possible  kind :  “  I  believe  in  Jesus 
as  the  Son  of  God.”  Then  men  began  to 
ask,  “  What  does  this  mean  ?  How  can 
He  be  the  Son  of  God  ?  Is  He  Son  of 
God  in  any  different  sense  from  that  in 
which  we  may  be  sons  of  God  ?  ”  It 
became  necessary  to  answer  these  questions 
in  view  of  certain  false  conceptions  of 
Christ  which  became  current.  There  arose 
those  who  denied  that  Jesus  was  the  Son 
of  God  in  any  sense  that  was  not  true  also 
of  every  man.  There  arose  also  those  who 
denied  that  Jesus  was  in  any  sense  a  true 
man.  They  said  His  manhood  was  a  merely 
phantasmal  thing,  something  adopted  for 
the  time  being,  and  that  the  essence  of  His 
nature  was  divine.  There  arose  also  those 
who  insisted  that  Jesus  Christ  was  only  one 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  CREEDS  173 


of  many  revelations  of  the  Godhead,  that 
He  was  but  one  link  in  a  great  chain  of 
angels,  archangels,  emanations,  and  minis¬ 
ters,  sent  of  God  to  link  up  this  earth  with 
heaven.  And  so  it  became  necessary  for 
the  representatives  of  the  Christian  Church 
to  set  down  in  plain  speech  what  they  meant 
by  ascribing  divine  honour  and  sonship  to 
this  Jesus  of  Nazareth  ;  and  thereupon  began 
the  long,  painful,  and  intricate  process  by 
which  the  creeds  of  Christendom  grew 
up.  It  is  impossible  to  describe  this  pro¬ 
cess  in  detail,  but  we  may  attempt  to 
study  very  briefly  one  or  two  of  these 
creeds,  or  at  least  those  parts  of  them 
that  refer  especially  to  Jesus  Christ,  that 
we  may  discover  how  Christians  arrived 
at  those  dogmatic  statements  concerning 
Jesus  which  seem  to  take  us  so  far 
away  from  what  we  are  accustomed  to 
consider  the  simplicity  of  the  Christian 
Gospel. 

First  of  all,  then,  there  is  the  Creed  which 
we  know  to-day  as  the  Apostles’,  and  which 


174  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  CREEDS 

makes  the  following  statements  in  regard 
to  Jesus  Christ  : 

I  believe  ...  in  Jesus  Christ,  God’s  only 
Son  our  Lord,  Who  was  conceived  from  the 
Holy  Ghost,  Born  of  the  Virgin  Mary, 
Suffered  under  Pontius  Pilate,  Was  crucified, 
dead,  and  buried,  He  descended  into  hell  ; 
the  third  day  He  rose  again  from  the  dead, 
He  ascended  into  heaven,  And  sitteth  on 
the  right  hand  of  God  the  Father  Almighty ; 
From  thence  He  shall  come  to  judge  the 
quick  and  the  dead. 

That  is  not  the  earliest  form  of  the  creed. 
As  we  have  it,  it  dates  only  from  some¬ 
where  about  the  end  of  the  fifth  century. 
It  was  certainly  not,  as  the  tradition  ran, 
composed  by  the  apostles  themselves.  Be¬ 
hind  this  Creed  there  was  another  form  of  it 
that  was  current  in  the  Roman  Church  at  a 
comparatively  early  period,  i.e .  during  part 
of  the  second  century ;  and  there  is  reason 
to  believe  that  this  earliest  form  of  the 
Creed,  so  far  as  the  Christological  element 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  CREEDS  175 


in  it  was  concerned,  was  not  greatly  different 
from  that  which  is  in  use  in  our  churches 
to-day.  We  may  take  it  that  this  is  one 
of  the  simplest  and  possibly  one  of  the 
earliest  forms  in  which  the  Church  stated 
its  definite  belief  concerning  Jesus  Christ,  and 
all  that  need  be  said  of  it  for  the  moment 
is  that  it  provides  a  convenient  bridge 
between  the  history  as  we  know  it  in  the 
Gospels  and  the  later  dogmatic  statements 
concerning  Jesus.  It  marks  the  transition 
from  faith  regarded  as  a  simple  trust  in 
Jesus  Christ  to  faith  regarded  as  a  body  of 
fixed  doctrine  concerning  Christ.  The  im¬ 
portant  point  to  notice  is  that  faith  in  this 
latter  sense  is  still  closely  connected  with 
the  historical  Person. 

But  it  was  in  the  formation  of  the  Nicene 
Creed  that  Christian  doctrine  concerning 
Jesus  Christ  became  for  the  first  time  set 
and  stereotyped.  We  cannot  here  describe 
in  detail  the  great  conflict  that  culminated 
in  Nicsea  between  the  two  protagonists, 
Arius,  on  the  one  hand,  and  Athanasius 


176  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  CREEDS 


on  the  other.  The  controversy  arose  natur¬ 
ally  out  of  the  various  attempts  which 
were  being  made  to  give  more  philosophical 
form  to  the  definitions  of  the  earlier 
Creed.  Hatch  finds  an  instance  of  such 
expansion  of  the  Creed  in  the  letter  sent 
by  Hymenseus,  Bishop  of  Jerusalem,  and 
his  colleagues  to  Paul  of  Samosata :  The 
faith  which  had  been  handed  down  from 
the  beginning  is  that  44  God  is  unbegotten, 
one,  without  beginning,  unseen,  unchange¬ 
able,  whom  no  man  hath  seen  or  can 
see,  whose  glory  and  greatness  it  is  im¬ 
possible  for  human  nature  to  trace  out 
adequately  ;  but  we  must  be  content  to 
have  a  moderate  conception  of  Him.  His 
Son  reveals  Him.  As  He  Himself  says, 
4  No  man  knoweth  the  Father  save  the 
Son,  and  he  to  whomsoever  the  Son 
revealeth  Him.’  We  confess  and  proclaim 
His  begotten  Son  the  only-begotten,  the 
image  of  the  invisible  God,  the  firstborn 
of  everv  creature,  the  wisdom  and  word 

4/  y 

and  power  of  God,  being  before  the  worlds, 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  CREEDS  177 


God,  not  by  foreknowledge,  but  by  essence 
and  substance.”  1 

It  is  a  familiar  story  how  Arius,  the 
presbyter  of  Alexandria,  set  up  as  against 
the  teaching  of  his  bishop,  the  idea  that 
Jesus  was  a  creature,  that  is  to  say,  was 
created,  like  all  other  things  but,  that  He 
was  the  first  of  created  beings.  This  idea 
of  Arius,  with  all  that  followed  from  it  in 
regard  to  the  subordination  of  the  Son  to 
the  Father  and  in  regard  to  the  relationship 
of  the  Son,  not  to  the  Father  only  but  to 
the  universe,  which  was  created  through 
the  Son,  became  a  type  of  doctrine  which 
spread  very  rapidly  throughout  the  whole 
Church  of  the  day.  There  is  this  to  be 
said  about  it.  Heretical  as  it  was  after¬ 
wards  judged  to  be,  it  was  at  least  nearer 
to  New  Testament  teaching  than  some  of 
the  teaching  which  was  afterwards  judged 
to  be  orthodox.  It  is  necessary,  if  we 
would  follow  the  history  of  the  time,  and 
realise  how  the  ideas  concerning  Jesus 

1  Hibbert  Lecture,  p.  327. 


12 


178  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  CREEDS 

Christ  which  became  orthodox  arose  and 
became  dominant,  that  we  should  clearly 
understand  the  position  which  Arius  takes 
up.  He  bases  his  whole  teaching  on  the 
theistic  position.  He  starts  from  the  idea 
of  the  One  and  absolute  God,  and  he  sees 
in  Jesus  the  incarnation  of  God’s  Logos, 
itself  created  in  order  to  create  the  material 
world.  In  its  more  extreme  forms  the 
doctrine  came  to  mean  that  Jesus  was 
not  divine,  and  that  He  could  not  be 
worshipped.  Now,  this  idea  was,  of  course, 
bitterly  opposed,  and  it  aroused  so  much 
strife  in  the  Church  that  Constantine' called 
the  first  General  Council  to  pronounce  upon 
the  question  at  issue.  The  Council  met  at 
Nicsea  in  Bithynia,  in  the  year  a.d.  325,  and 
was  asked  to  decide  once  for  all  what  should 
be  the  belief  of  Christians  concerning  Jesus 
Christ  and  His  relation  to  God.  The  great 
opponent  of  Arius  was  Athanasius,  a  man 
mighty  in  controversy,  but  of  no  great 
standing  in  the  Church  of  the  day.  In 
office  he  was  simply  a  deacon,  but  his 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  CREEDS  179 


intellectual  superiority  made  him  the 
protagonist  on  the  orthodox  side.  Gradu¬ 
ally  the  controversy  came  to  centre  round 
the  famous  word  44  Ousia,”  or  Essence. 
The  main  point  at  issue  was  this  :  Was 
Jesus  Christ  to  be  called  44  Of  like 
essence  with  God,”  that  is,  44  Homoiousios,” 
or  was  He  to  be  called  “  Of  the  same 
essence  with  God — Homoousios  ”  ?  Are 
we  to  say  that  Jesus  was  only  like  God 
in  the  sense  that  perhaps  all  human 
nature  is  made  in  His  image,  or  are  we 
to  say  that  Jesus  Christ  is  of  the  very 
essence  of  God  ?  The  majority  of  the 
Council  was,  at  first,  in  favour  of  finding 
some  via  media .  Led  by  Eusebius  of 
Caesarea,  they  would  have  been  perfectly 
ready  to  take  a  middle  course  between 
the  Arian  and  Athanasian  positions,  and 
come  to  a  compromise,  but,  as  the  Em¬ 
peror  decreed  that  they  must  take  a 
firm  line,  they  decided  for  Athanasius  and 
his  position,  and  the  word  went  forth  that 
Jesus  Christ  was  of  the  very  essence  of 


180  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  CREEDS 


God.1  Arius  and  his  friends  for  the  time 
being  were  banished,  and  the  controversy 
ended  in  the  establishment  and  acceptance 
of  that  ancient  symbol  which  we  call  the 
Nicene  Creed,  and  which  was  given  its  full 
form  at  the  Council  at  Constantinople  some 
fifty  years  afterwards.  In  this  symbol  the 
statements  concerning  Jesus  Christ  are  of 
the  most  explicit  character  possible,  and 
read  as  follows  : 

And  in  one  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  only- 
begotten  Son  of  God,  begotten  of  His 
Father  before  all  worlds,  God  of  God, 
Light  of  Light,  Very  God  of  very  God, 
Begotten,  not  made,  Being  of  one  sub¬ 
stance  with  the  Father;  By  whom  all 
things  were  made,  Who  for  us  men  and 

1  “  The  Christian  doctrine  of  the  Person  of  Christ  can 
be  stated  simply  enough — that  He  is  as  divine  as  the  Father 
and  as  human  as  ourselves.  This  is  the  sum  total  of 
Christian  orthodoxy  on  the  matter,  and  any  one  who  means 
this  means  all  that  Athanasius  ever  meant.  The  technicali¬ 
ties  of  the  creeds  add  nothing  to  it,  and  were  only  meant 
(and  needed)  to  prevent  officials  of  the  Church  from  saying 
it,  like  Arius  and  many  of  the  moderns,  in  some  evasive 
sense  which  entirely  changes  its  meaning.” — Gwatkin, 
The  Knowledge  of  God ,  vol.  ii.  p.  112. 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  CREEDS  181 


for  our  salvation  came  down  from  heaven, 
and  was  incarnate  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and 
the  Virgin  Mary,  And  was  made  man,  And 
was  crucified  also  for  us  under  Pontius 
Pilate.  He  suffered  and  was  buried,  And 
the  third  day  He  rose  again  according  to 
the  Scriptures,  And  ascended  into  heaven, 
and  sitteth  on  the  right  hand  of  the  Father, 
And  He  shall  come  again  with  glory  to 
judge  both  the  quick  and  the  dead  :  Whose 
kingdom  shall  have  no  end. 


There  is  one  difference  at  least  between 
this  Creed  and  the  Creed  called  the  Apostles’. 
Here  is  a  comparatively  long,  philosophical 
and  somewhat  elaborate  statement  pre¬ 
ceding  the  historical  statement.  This  Jesus 
is  46  The  only-begotten  Son  of  God,  begotten 
of  the  Father  before  all  worlds,  God  of  God, 
Light  of  Light,  Very  God  of  very  God,  be¬ 
gotten,  not  made,  being  of  one  substance 
with  the  Father,”  and  so  on.  This  is  an 
addendum,  so  to  speak,  to  the  story  of  the 
Jesus  of  history.  But  explicit  as  it  is  it 
still  leaves  much  to  be  desired.  It  left  open 


182  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  CREEDS 


the  question  as  to  the  precise  relation  of  the 
human  and  divine  in  the  Person  of  Jesus 
Christ.  The  prevalence  of  various  specula¬ 
tions  on  the  subject  gave  rise  to  the  following 
definite  pronouncement  by  the  Council  of 
Chalcedon  in  451 : 

Following  the  holy  Fathers,  we  confess 
and  all  with  one  consent  teach  one  and  the 
same  Son,  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  same 
perfect  in  Godhead  and  also  perfect  in  man¬ 
hood  :  truly  God  and  truly  man  ;  the  same 
consisting  of  a  rational  soul  and  body,  con- 
substantial  with  the  Father  according  to 
the  Godhead,  and  consubstantial  with  us 
according  to  the  manhood  ;  in  all  things 
like  unto  us  without  sin  :  begotten  before 
all  ages  of  the  Father  according  to  the  God¬ 
head,  and  in  these  latter  days,  for  us  and  for 
our  salvation,  born  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  the 
mother  of  God,  according  to  the  manhood  : 
one  and  the  same  Christ,  Son,  Lord,  only- 
begotten,  to  be  acknowledged  in  two  natures 
inconfusedly,  unchangeably,  indivisibly,  in¬ 
separably  :  the  distinction  of  natures  being 
by  no  means  taken  away  by  the  union,  but 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  CREEDS  183 

rather  the  property  of  each  nature  being 
preserved,  and  concurring  in  one  Person  and 
one  subsistence,  not  parted  or  divided  into 
two  persons,  but  one,  the  same  Son  and  only- 
begotten  God,  the  Word,  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  as  the  prophets  from  the  beginning 
have  declared  concerning  Him. 

The  next  stage  in  this  process  of  elabora¬ 
tion  is  marked  by  the  rise  of  the  so-called 
Athanasian  Creed  or  Quicunque  vult.  This 
gave  a  final  form  to  the  Chalcedonian 

Christology. 

It  arose  in  South  Gaul  or  in  Spain,  not 
earlier  than  the  fifth  century  and  possibly  a 
century  later,  and  it  became  the  stereotyped 
form  of  the  Christology  of  the  Christian 
Church.  It  remains  embodied  in  the  Eng¬ 
lish  Prayer-book  at  the  present  day,  and  it 
is  to  be  taken  as  the  last  word,  the  high- 
water  mark  of  ancient  philosophical  specula¬ 
tion  on  the  Person  of  Jesus  Christ.  The 
following  passages  from  the  Creed  will  serve 
to  indicate  the  point  to  which  we  have 
attained. 


184  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  CREEDS 


Whosoever  will  be  saved  before  all 
things  it  is  necessary  that  he  hold  the 
Catholick  Faith. 

Which  Faith  except  every  one  do  keep 
whole  and  undefiled  without  doubt  he  shall 
perish  everlastingly. 

And  the  Catholick  faith  is  this  :  That  we 
worship  one  God  in  Trinity,  and  Trinity  in 
Unity  ; 

Neither  confounding  the  Persons  nor 
dividing  the  Substance. 

For  there  is  one  Person  of  the  Father, 
another  of  the  Son,  and  another  of  the 
Holy  Ghost. 


Furthermore,  it  is  necessary  to  ever¬ 
lasting  salvation  that  he  also  believe  rightly 
the  Incarnation  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

For  the  right  Faith  is,  that  we  believe 
and  confess  that  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the 
Son  of  God,  is  God  and  Man  ; 

God,  of  the  Substance  of  the  Father, 
begotten  before  the  worlds  ;  and  Man,  of 
the  Substance  of  His  mother,  born  in  the 
world  ; 

Perfect  God  and  perfect  Man ;  of  a 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  CREEDS  185 


reasonable  soul  and  human  flesh  sub¬ 
sisting  ; 

Equal  to  the  Father,  as  touching  His 
Godhead  ;  and  inferior  to  the  Father,  as 
touching  His  Manhood. 

Who,  although  He  be  God  and  Man,  yet 
He  is  not  two,  but  one  Christ. 

And  of  this  God  and  Man  it  is  said  in 
another  place  : 

The  Father  [is]  eternal,  the  Son  eternal, 
and  the  Holy  Ghost  eternal. 

And  yet  they  are  not  three  eternals  ;  but 
One  Eternal ; 

As  also  there  are  not  three  incompre- 
hensibles,  nor  three  uncreated ;  but  One 
Uncreated  and  One  Incomprehensible. 

In  these  words  we  have  the  final  form 
of  this  attempt  to  express  Jesus  Christ  in 
terms  of  human  philosophy ;  and  it  will  be 
generally  agreed  that  they  represent  a  very 
marked  advance  on  the  language  of  the 
New  Testament  and  on  this  first  Christian 
Creed :  “  I  believe  that  Jesus  Christ  is  the 
Son  of  God.” 


186  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  CREEDS 

The  question  for  us  at  the  present  time, 
and  indeed  for  the  whole  Christian  Church 
of  to-day,  is  as  to  the  right  intellectual 
attitude  to  assume  towards  these  Christian 
Creeds.  How  far  can  we  be  expected  to 
accept  them,  and  how  far  is  it  true  still  that 
“  Whosoever  shall  not  accept  these  things 
shall  without  doubt  perish  everlastingly  ”  ? 

First  of  all,  it  must  be  remembered  that 
we  have  in  the  Creeds  the  result  of  the 
natural  development  of  the  thought  of  the 
Christian  Church.  The  great  datum  of 
Christianity  is  the  Person  of  Jesus  Christ, 
that  Person  who  is  set  before  us  in  the 
Gospels,  and  who  is  a  legitimate  subject 
for  our  study  and  reflection.  There  are 
those  who  would  have  us  turn  altogether 
away  from  anything  that  is  in  the  natuie 
of  dogmatic  Christianity ;  but  we  cannot 
do  it.  So  long  as  men  have  minds  they 
will  reflect,  and  so  long  as  they  try  to  reflect 
upon  Christian  truth  as  given  to  them  they 
must  frame  doctrine.  We  need  not,  of 
course,  impose  our  doctrine  upon  any  one 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  CREEDS  187 


else  ;  we  have  no  right  to  do  it.  But  in 
order  to  make  doctrine  we  must  think,  and 
we  must  use  the  intellectual  power  we  possess 
and  the  forms  of  thought  peculiar  to  our 
day.  The  process  of  the  formation  of 
Christian  doctrine  followed  a  perfectly 
natural  and  well-defined  course.  There  is 
given  the  Person  of  Jesus  Christ  appearing 
in  history  amid  certain  intellectual  con¬ 
ditions  that  have  to  be  taken  into  account. 
At  first  these  are  Jewish.  Next  the  Christian 
idea  is  brought  into  contact  with  men  whose 
minds  were  steeped  in  Greek  philosophy  and 
familiar  with  the  method  of  the  philosophical 
schools.  It  was  an  accepted  idea  that  each 
one  of  these  schools  had  its  own  formulas, 
and  that  every  member  of  the  school  must 
accept  the  formulas.  Thus  it  is  easily 
understood  how  the  Christian  Church  be¬ 
came  to  some  people  mainly  an  intellectual 
school,  and  therefore  must  have  its  formulas, 
and  that  its  formulas  must  be  accepted  by 
those  who  belonged  to  it.  So  there  grows 
up  the  idea  that  if  a  man  does  not  accept 


188  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  CREEDS 

the  formulas  he  will  be  cut  off  from  the 
society,  and  will  without  doubt  perish  ever¬ 
lastingly.  But  that  is  not  a  strictly  Chris¬ 
tian  idea.  It  belongs  to  the  philosophical 
thought  and  practice  of  the  moment,  and 
has  in  it  little  or  nothing  that  belongs  to 
revealed  Christianity. 

There  follows  from  this  the  further  idea 
that  it  is  necessary,  in  order  to  defend  the 
faith,  to  make  a  perfectly  clear  and  explicit 
statement  in  regard  to  the  objects  of  the 
faith.  This  is  a  process  that  is  carried  on 
every  day  in  all  departments  of  human 
thought.  The  moment  any  truth  is  arrived 
at,  the  mind  of  man  necessarily  demands 
that  that  truth  shall  be  stated  in  terms  as 
explicit  as  possible ;  and  it  is  most  interesting 
in  the  study  of  history  to  discover  how 
slowlv  and  with  what  pain  and  effort  men 
have  sought  to  beat  out  for  themselves 
some  definite  statement  in  regard  to  the 
great  and  perplexing  truths  concerning 
God  and  His  Christ. 

Probably  no  doubt  was  ever  entertained 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  CREEDS  189 


by  any  save  the  very  greatest  of  those  who 
took  part  in  these  ancient  controversies  as 
to  the  possibility  of  putting  into  adequate 
words  the  great  spiritual  and  metaphysical 
ideas  with  which  they  had  to  deal.  But 
we  have  come  to  realise  more  generally 
that  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  in  the  Scripture 
statements  concerning  Jesus  Christ,  there 
are  truths  adumbrated  which  are  not  to  be 
put  into  words.  No  words  that  the  human 
mind  can  invent  are  sufficient  to  express 
the  full  meaning  of  the  revelation  of  God 
in  Jesus  Christ,  and  we  now  understand 
that  not  even  the  development  of  religious 
thought  has  yet  come  to  an  end.  We  cannot 
believe  that  the  fullest  possible  expression 
of  the  revelation  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus  was 
reached  in  the  fourth  century  or  in  the 
fifth  century,  or  will  be  reached  in  this 
twentieth  century  to  which  we  belong. 
The  work  of  Christ  is  final,  but  our  concep¬ 
tion  of  it  grows.  We  have  to  try  and  under¬ 
stand  that  in  Christ  there  is  a  great  and 
constantly  advancing  truth  set  before  the 


190  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  CREEDS 


mind  of  man,  that  each  age  has  to  adapt 
itself  to  it  and  express  it  in  its  own  way  and 
in  its  own  terms  ;  and  that  we  have  no  right 
to  bind  ourselves  to  the  form  of  expression 
current  in  any  particular  period  of  the 
history  of  the  Christian  Church.  Rather 
it  is  obligatory  on  us  to  go  behind  all  the 
creeds  and  to  discover  what  they  said  and 
meant  for  the  time  in  which  and  for  which 
they  were  formulated,  in  order  that  we  may 
be  the  better  able  to  make  a  creed  for  our 
own  time,  and  the  better  able  to  express 
the  truth  as  it  is  in  Christ  Jesus  for  our  own 
day  and  for  our  own  lives.  The  symbol  of 
Nicsea  and  the  symbol  of  Athanasius  were 
both  of  them  useful  and  necessary  in  their 
own  day.  They  helped,  in  the  providence 
of  God,  to  preserve  Christian  truth  invio¬ 
lable  when  the  great  collapse  of  the  Roman 
Empire  came.  They  stereotyped  and  hard¬ 
ened  the  truth  into  exact  formulas,  so  that 
men  were  able  to  receive  and  hand  it  on  in 
such  a  way  as  to  keep  them  true  to  the 
great  central  Christian  position,  the  position 


THE  CHRIST  OE  THE  CREEDS  191 


that  Jesus  Christ  was  the  Son  of  God. 
These  ancient  forms  conserved  the  truths 
they  contained,  but,  having  done  their  work, 
they  are  largely  dead  or  may  be  suffered  to 
die.  To-day  these  creeds  are  as  a  millstone 
round  the  neck  of  many  a  Christian.  Men 
have  to  struggle  and  submit  to  evasions  and 
reservations  in  order  to  accept  them,  and 
when  they  are  made  part  of  the  door,  so 
to  speak,  into  the  Christian  Church  and  to 
Christian  office,  they  are  surely  turned  to 
an  unspiritual  use,  and  are  made  the  means 
of  stultifying  the  whole  intellectual  position 
of  those  who  so  use  them.  They  are  inter¬ 
esting  historical  monuments.  They  did  their 
work  and  they  have  had  their  day ;  but 
they  are  not  to  be  bound  on  tender  con¬ 
sciences  in  this  time  or  in  any  time.  Any 
creed  which  a  body  of  Christians  may  for¬ 
mulate,  any  creed  which  the  Christian  Church 
may  make  at  the  present  time  can  and  must 
only  be  declaratory,  setting  forth  the  view 
of  the  Church  for  the  time  being,  and  ought 
not  to  be  made  an  imposition  upon  any. 


192  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  CREEDS 


The  question  still  remains  as  to  what 
relation  these  formulas  bear  to  the  Person 
of  Jesus  Christ  as  we  knowr  it  in  the  Gospels. 
All  that  can  be  required  of  Christian  men 
at  the  present  time  is  an  answer  to  the 
question,  44  Do  you  believe  in  Jesus  Christ  ?  ” 
Every  man  should  be  allowed  to  express  that 
belief  in  his  own  terms.  As  Dr.  Denney 
has  recently  shown  it  might  be  possible  and 
is  surely  desirable  to  reduce  all  the  creeds 
of  Christendom  to  this  very  simple  form : 
44  I  believe  in  God  through  Jesus  Christ, 
His  only  Son,  our  Lord  and  Saviour.”  That 
is  all  that  is  really  needed ;  for  it  should  be 
remembered  that  belief  in  Jesus  Christ  is 
not  the  acceptance  of  intellectual  proposi¬ 
tions  concerning  Jesus  Christ.1  Belief  in 
Jesus  Christ  is  the  acceptance  in  actual  fact 
and  experience  of  Jesus  Christ  on  His  own 
terms.  The  man  who  really  believes  is  the 
man  who  in  his  own  heart  says  to  Jesus 


1  Cf.  Burn,  On  the  Creeds ,  p.  6.  “  Christian  metaphysic 

is  no  more  an  end  in  itself  than  the  analysis  of  good 
drinking-water.  By  itself  it  leaves  us  thirsty.” 


THE  CHRIST  OP  THE  CREEDS  193 


Christ,  “  My  Lord  and  Saviour,”  who  acts 
upon  that  principle,  who  makes  Christ  his 
Leader  and  his  Lord,  who  lives  in  and  unto 
Him,  who  seeks  His  ends  and  pursues  His 
will.  That  is  the  man  who  believes,  and 
not  the  man  who  can  say  merely  that  He  is 
Very  God  of  very  God,  that  He  is  eternal, 
co-eternal  with  the  Father,  that  He  is  of 
the  same  substance  with  the  Father.  With 
those  who  like  to  pursue  matters  of  that 
intellectual  and  philosophical  nature,  these 
are  probably  the  conclusions  which  they 
will  reach ;  but  the  real  essence  of  the  matter 
is  to  take  up  that  attitude  of  soul  towards 
Jesus  Christ  that  makes  Him  central  to 
faith  ;  and  so  long  as  that  is  done,  so  long 
as  men  bow  before  Him  as  their  Lord  and 
Master  and  live  their  lives  in  and  unto  Him, 
He  is  to  them  all  that  He  can  ever  be,  and 
they  are  Christians  in  deed  and  in  truth.1 

1  Cf.  Harnack :  History  of  Dogma ,  vol.  i.  p.  133. 
“Behind  and  in  the  Gospel  stands  the  Person  of  Jesus 
Christ,  who  mastered  men’s  hearts  and  constrained  them  to 
yield  themselves  to  Him  as  His  own,  and  in  whom  they 
found  their  God.  Theology  attempted  to  describe  in  a 

13 


194  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  CREEDS 


Now,  the  sense  of  this  has  never  been  lost 
at  any  period  in  the  Christian  Church. 
Both  in  the  early  Church  and  in  the  Middle 
Ages  there  were  hymns  and  other  writings 
which  show  that  Jesus  Christ  was  present 
to  men’s  minds  in  other  than  the  merely 
intellectual  form,  and  that  they  had  a  warmer 
and  deeper  relationship  with  Him.  Among 
these  is  a  famous  hymn  attributed  to  St. 
Patrick,  which  may  be  dated  about  the 
middle  of  the  fifth  century,  and  which  con¬ 
tains  these  words — and  it  is  words  like  these, 
rather  than  those  abstract  philosophical 
statements,  which  express  the  real  attitude 
of  the  Christian  Church  and  Christian  souls 
towards  Jesus  Christ,  their  Lord  and  their 
God. 

Christ  with  me,  Christ  before  me, 

Christ  behind  me,  Christ  within  me, 

Christ  beneath  me,  Christ  above  me, 

Christ  on  my  right,  Christ  on  my  left, 

very  uncertain  and  feeble  outline  what  the  mind  and  heart 
had  grasped.  Yet  it  testifies  of  a  new  life  which,  like  all 
higher  life,  was  kindled  by  a  Person,  and  could  only  be 
maintained  by  connection  with  that  Person.” 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  CREEDS  195 


Christ  in 
Christ  in 
Christ  in 
me, 
Christ  in 
me, 
Christ  in 
Christ  in 


the  fort,  Christ  on  the  chariot  seat, 
the  poop, 

the  heart  of  every  man  who  thinks  of 

the  mouth  of  every  man  who  speaks  of 

every  eye  that  sees  me, 
every  ear  that  hears  me. 


/ 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  REFORMATION 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  REFORMATION 

Being  therefore  justified  by  faith,  we  have  peace  with 
God  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  ;  through  Whom 
also  we  have  access  by  faith  into  this  grace  wherein  we 

stand. — Rom.  v.  1,  2. 

E  have  traced  the  process  by  which 


’  ’  the  doctrine  of  Jesus  Christ  grew 
throughout  the  history  of  the  early  Church. 
We  have  seen  it  passing  through  various 
phases  in  New  Testament  and  apostolic 
times,  and  under  various  influences  con¬ 
solidating  into  fixed  dogmatic  form  in  the 
fourth  and  fifth  centuries.  The  process 
has  been  really  one  of  development.  There 
has  been  at  the  centre,  and  as  the  source  of 
it,  the  living  Person  of  Jesus  Christ,  having 
within  the  power  of  growth  and  adaptation. 
In  the  same  way,  man’s  thought  about  the 


199 


200  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  REFORMATION 


person  of  Jesus  Christ,  working  in  experience 
and  influenced  by  outside  conditions,  has 
grown  like  a  really  living  thing.  We  have 
seen  the  way  in  which  Hebrew  law,  Greek 
philosophy,  and  Roman  imperialism  have  all 
in  their  turn  been  brought  to  bear  upon  this 
organism,  and  have  profoundly  influenced 
it  and  conditioned  its  growth ;  and  we  have 
seen  also,  in  the  process  of  beating  out  the 
truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,  how  various  errors 
have  crept  in  from  time  to  time,  and  have 
had  their  part  to  play,  each,  as  it  were, 
contributing  its  quota  to  the  better  expres¬ 
sion  of  the  truth. 

We  have  now  come  to  a  time  when  truth 
is  for  the  Church  practically  fixed.  Doctrine 
has  become  dogma,  and  it  may  be  said  with 
authority  not  only  that  such  and  such 
things  are  believed  by  Christians,  but  that 
unless  men  and  women  believe  such  and 
such  things  they  cannot  be  reckoned  as 
Christians.  In  the  various  creeds  there  was 
set  out  in  clear,  unmistakable  form,  the 
whole  Catholic  faith,  which,  unless  a  man 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  REFORMATION  201 

believed  he  would  without  doubt  perish 
everlastingly.  That  is,  so  to  speak,  the 
culmination  of  the  process.  There  the 
finished  product  stands  before  us.  There  is 
the  doctrine  of  Jesus  Christ  set  forth  once 
and  for  all  authoritatively,  and  that  is  what 
the  Church  must  receive.  The  new  point 
which  emerges  in  the  fifth  century  is  the  insis¬ 
tence  on  the  fact  that  one  particular  form 
of  doctrine — three  Persons  in  one  Godhead, 
two  Natures  in  one  Person,  and  the  like — is 
absolutely  necessary  to  salvation. 

Now,  the  result  of  this  upon  the  minds  of 
Christians,  and  upon  the  lives  of  Christians, 
was  far-reaching  and  almost  immeasurable. 
This  fixing  of  doctrine  into  dogma  led  in 
the  first  instance  to  a  serious  separation 
between  Christian  thought  and  Christian 
life.  It  resulted  in  the  second  place  in 
dividing  man  from  God  by  a  wider  gulf 
than  had  almost  ever  been  felt  before.  Men 
and  women  were  educated  in  the  belief  that 
in  order  to  be  saved,  in  order  to  know  God, 
in  order  to  live  a  Christian  life,  they  must 


202  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  REFORMATION 


think  those  thoughts  that  the  old  Fathers 
thought ;  they  must  take  up  this  particular 
intellectual  position,  and  must  fit  themselves 
with  these  intellectual  garments.  They 
found  the  task  very  difficult.  Most  of  those 
who  ever  thought  at  all  about  Christian 
subjects  were  quite  probably  unable  to 
grasp  the  meaning  of  the  dogmatic  position 
as  a  whole.  The  matter  was  left  to  the 
select  few  ;  the  Church  became  the  deposi¬ 
tory  of  truth  ;  the  priest  became  the  holder 
of  the  conscience  of  man  ;  and  so  long  as 
men  and  women  were  able  to  relate  them¬ 
selves  with  some  sort  of  success  to  the 
Church  it  was  understood  that  they  need 
not  trouble  very  much  about  their  own 
doctrinal  position.  Let  them  assert  in 
words,  let  them  take  for  granted  that  what 
the  Church  said  was  true,  and  all  would  be 
well.  In  consequence,  the  relation  between 
Christian  truth  and  Christian  life  became 
very  slight.  It  was  not  necessary  to  be  a 
good  man  or  a  good  woman  in  order  to  be  a 
Christian  of  the  older  orthodoxy.  It  has 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  REFORMATION  203 

to  be  admitted  that  wherever  a  Church  is 
found  to  insist  upon  a  strict  standard  of 
orthodoxy  there  is  at  least  the  danger  of  a 
low  standard  of  morals.  History  supplies 
abundant  evidence  of  the  fact.  So  long  as 
men  imagine  that  they  can  be  saved  by 
right  thinking  they  will  pay  little  or  no 
attention  to  right  doing.  The  relation 
between  creed  and  conduct  is  not  always 
that  of  a  natural  sequitur. 

Then,  on  the  other  hand,  this  position  led 
to  a  real  separation  between  God  and  man. 
When  men  are  told  that  what  is  most  need¬ 
ful  to  know  of  God  is  to  be  found  in  such 
formulas  as  the  Athanasian  Creed,  certain 
results  follow.  They  feel  that  God  has 
become  a  kind  of  metaphysical  entity  of 
which  they  can  really  know  nothing.  They 
feel  that  the  whole  atmosphere  of  religion 
has  become  to  them  a  mist  of  puzzle  and 
perplexity.  We  have  only  to  read  a  little 
way  into  the  literature  of  the  Middle  Ages 
to  find  out  that  such  ideas  were  very  pre¬ 
valent.  God  was  far  away  ;  He  was  a  great 


204  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  REFORMATION 


riddle  which  no  man  could  read,  the  secret 
of  which  only  a  few  could  understand. 
All  that  the  common  folk  could  do  was  to 
feel  that  here  were  mysteries  and  perplexi¬ 
ties  utterly  beyond  them,  and  that  they 
were  at  the  mercy  of  any  who  professed  to 
interpret  them.  It  is  curious  to  discover 
how  in  the  Middle  Ages  the  great  Christian 
teachers  and  leaders,  the  men  who  carried 
on  theological  controversies,  and  tried  to 
puzzle  out  for  themselves  the  meaning  of 
the  old  formulas — how  these  men  stood 
apart  from  the  really  vital  Christian  move¬ 
ments  of  the  time.  The  schoolmen  spoke, 
if  they  spoke  at  all,  in  the  utmost  scorn  of 
such  a  movement  as  that  of  St.  Francis. 
They  feel  that  such  efforts  of  men  and 
women  for  a  better  life  have  nothing  to  do 
with  the  issues  that  concern  them.  Their 
business  is  with  the  metaphysical  side  of 
things,  and  unless  they  are  able  to  bring 
some  new  light  to  bear  there,  they  do  not 
seem  to  be  really  facing  the  Christian  problem 
at  all.  It  was  left  to  the  mystics  to  give 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  REFORMATION  205 

expression  to  the  relation  between  Christian 
truth  and  practice ;  and  even  these  help 
us  to  understand  how  hard  it  is  for  men 
whose  Christianity  takes  only  a  speculative 
form  to  grasp  experimentally  the  truth  of 
the  teaching  and  work  and  redemption  of 
God  in  Jesus  Christ. 

Then  there  came  a  change.  The  Re¬ 
formation,  as  we  now  call  it,  was  an  event 
which  had  a  great  many  roots.  It  was  in  a 
sense  the  child  of  the  Renaissance.  It  was 
brought  about,  on  one  side  at  least,  by  the 
immense  intellectual  awakening  and  the 
revival  of  learning  and  letters  due  to  the 
study  of  the  old  classics,  and  the  recovery 
of  the  ancient  languages  in  which  the 
Scriptures  are  written.  But  there  was  more 
in  it  than  that.  Those  who  have  studied 
the  literature  of  the  time  cannot  fail  to 
notice  that  there  was  in  those  days  the 
surging  and  stirring  of  a  new  life  under  the 
hard  formalism  and  dogmatism  of  the 
Catholic  Church.  It  is  to  be  seen  in  the 
ready  welcome  that  Luther  met  with.  It 


206  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  REFORMATION 


is  to  be  seen  in  the  intellectual  keenness 
and  spiritual  fervour  of  Calvin  and  the  men 
he  gathered  round  him.  It  may  be  dis¬ 
covered  even  in  the  writings  of  many  of  the 
humanists  of  the  day.  There  was  every¬ 
where  a  divine  discontent,  a  quickening  of 
the  human  spirit,  a  softening  of  the  human 
heart,  an  opening  of  the  long-shut  eyes  to  the 
sense  that  men  must  get  near  to  God,  and 
get  near  to  Him  by  whatever  means  they 
could.  These  two  forces,  the  literary  and 
the  spiritual,  if  it  may  so  be  called,  met  at 
the  Reformation.  The  leading  Reformers 
were  all  orthodox  men.  It  is  most  in¬ 
teresting  and  curious  to  discover  how  eager 
they  are  to  declare  to  the  world  that  they 
are  orthodox;  how  Luther,  Melanchthon, 
and  Calvin,  one  after  the  other,  profess 
that  they  are  quite  willing  to  accept  the 
old  statements  of  Christian  truth.  They 
mention  by  name  especially  the  Athanasian 
Creed.  Luther  put  the  Apostles’  Creed  into 
the  very  foundation  of  his  catechism,  and 
declared  over  and  over  again  that  he  held 


THE  CHRIST  OP  THE  REFORMATION  207 

by  what  was  there  set  forth.  But  he  held 
by  it  with  a  difference.  What  he  sought  and 
found  was  not  the  position  of  the  school¬ 
men.  His  intellectual  attitude  was  not  that 
of  a  hard  dogmatism,  or  a  merely  formal 
acceptance  of  the  truth  ;  it  was  a  living  and 
experimental  interpretation  of  the  truth 
by  the  man’s  own  heart  and  life  and 
conscience.  The  Reformers  were  pioneers. 
They  found  the  truth  as  it  was  in  Jesus  for 
themselves,  and  did  not  simply  receive  it 
from  any  of  the  men  that  came  before  them ; 
and  for  that  reason  they  were  reformers 
and  not  schoolmen,  prophets  rather  than 
scribes. 

These  facts  found  expression  for  them¬ 
selves  in  various  ways.  Although  the 
Reformers  were  very  eager  to  accept  the 
orthodoxy  of  their  day,  they  were  very 
jealous,  and  very  cautious  about  using  the 
current  terminology.  Luther  says  on  more 
than  one  occasion  that  he  does  not  like  the 
term  44  Trinity.”  There  is  44  something  not 
quite  German  about  it.”  He  means  that 


208  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  REFORMATION 


it  is  not  sufficiently  homely  and  intelligible. 
He  would  like  some  better  word.  He  does 
not,  again,  like  to  talk  much  about  Person 
and  Substance,  and  the  possibility  of  two 
Persons  in  one.  These  are  things  he  believes 
in,  but  it  is  better  not  to  say  much  about 
them.  Even  Calvin  takes  a  similar  position. 
Speaking  of  the  terms  Person  and  Substance 
as  applied  to  Jesus  Christ,  he  says  :  “  I 
could  wish  them,  indeed,  to  be  buried  in 
oblivion,  provided  this  faith  were  universally 
received  that  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy 
Ghost  are  one  God,  and  that,  nevertheless, 
the  Son  is  not  the  Father,  nor  the  Spirit. 
They  are  distinguished  from  each  other  by 
some  peculiar  property.”  Calvin  was  strug¬ 
gling  for  a  more  sane,  liberal,  and  intelligent 
interpretation  of  this  mystery  of  the  Person 
of  Jesus  Christ. 

The  Reformers  arrived  at  this  in  three 
different  ways.  First,  they  insisted,  as  the 
schoolmen  had  never  done,  upon  the  real 
humanity  of  Jesus  Christ.  Some  of  the 
brightest  and  most  beautiful  of  Luther’s 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  REFORMATION  209 


writing  is  concerned  with  the  human  life 
of  Jesus.  He  speaks  of  Him  as  a  little 
child,  a  babe  in  his  mother’s  arms,  as  the 
growing  boy  about  the  house,  running  to 
fetch  for  his  mother  the  water  from  the 
well,  or  the  wood  from  the  heap  ;  he  speaks 
of  Him  as  gathering  strength  until  He  is 
able  to  enter  His  father’s  workshop,  and 
use  the  tools  alongside  him,  and  he  says 
that  men  must  think  of  Him  as  in  these 
ways  one  of  themselves.  Luther,  no  doubt, 
thought  of  Him  as  a  little  German  boy  in 
a  German  home ;  but  he  was  none  the 
worse  for  it,  and  he  insisted,  with  all  the 
bright,  sunny  bonhomie  of  the  man,  that 
this  Jesus  Christ,  if  He  were  to  help,  or 
if  He  were  to  be  the  least  use  to  us,  must 
be  regarded  as  a  Man  amongst  men,  lovely 
in  His  life,  holy  and  sinless  as  no  man  ever 
was,  but  still  a  Man.  He  is  not  a  phantom 
of  the  imagination,  still  less  an  entity 
or  quiddity  of  metaphysics,  but  a  living 
Man  among  men.  He  is  One  into  whose 

presence  we  can  enter,  One  who  bore  our 

14 


210  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  REFORMATION 


infirmities,  who  was  tempted  like  as  we 
are,  yet  without  sin. 

It  is  not  easy  to  overestimate  the  import¬ 
ance  of  this  position.  It  was  this  sense  of 
the  humanity  of  Jesus  Christ  which  delivered 
the  Reformers  from  the  drear  and  arid 
formalism  of  the  past.  May  we  not  say 
that  it  is  this  sense  of  the  full  humanity  of 
Jesus  Christ  that  is  so  much  needed  in 
the  Christian  thought  even  of  to-day  ?  The 
moment  Jesus  Christ  is  turned  into  a 
philosophical  conception,  the  moment  men 
feel  that  the  essential  thing  about  an  under¬ 
standing  of  Him  is  to  be  able,  as  it  were, 
to  posit  Him  in  the  Godhead,  that  moment 
touch  with  Him  is  loosened,  and  His  effect 
upon  the  heart  becomes  less.  To  Luther 
it  was  a  great  thing  that  Jesus  Christ  was 
tempted.  As  he  says  in  some  of  his  quaint 
self-revelations,  it  was  this  more  than  any¬ 
thing  else  that  had  helped  him  to  endure 
his  own  temptation.  The  same  thing  has 
been  felt  by  many  since  Luther’s  day, 
who  have  found  comfort  in  the  fact  that 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  REFORMATION  211 


He  was  tempted  like  as  we  are,  and  yet 
without  sin.  In  the  sorrows  and  troubles 
of  life,  in  their  weary,  dull  toil,  men  have 
found  great  help  and  strength  in  the  thought 
that  this  was  the  way  the  Master  trod, 
that  He  knows  it,  that  He  understands  it, 
that  He  has  been  through  it  all  before. 
When  Luther  insisted  in  ways  that  some¬ 
times  were  rather  crude  and  vulgar,  that 
Christians  must  begin  with  the  humanity 
of  Jesus,  and  allow  nothing  to  obscure  it, 
he  was  right.  He  was  laying  the  foundation 
for  all  that  saner  and  lovelier  devotion  to 
Christ  which  came  after  the  Reformation 
days.  No  doubt,  he  was  building  better 
than  he  knew.  He  was  taking  Christian 
people  back  to  history,  and  helping  them 
to  understand  that  their  religion  was  not 
simply  a  question  for  the  philosopher,  or 
for  the  theologian,  but  that  it  was  a 
matter  of  historical  fact.  We  shall  have 
more  to  say  about  this  later  on,  but  the 
importance  of  it  must  not  be  overlooked. 
It  is  too  often  forgotten  to-day  that  once 


212  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  REFORMATION 


we  root  up  Christianity  out  of  history 
we  have  rooted  it  up  altogether.  We 
may  sift  the  source  of  the  mystery,  we 
may  criticise  the  historical  materials  avail¬ 
able,  but  we  must  understand  that  we  have 
to  go  back  to  the  Person  of  Jesus,  and 
take  our  stand  there  from  the  first.  Luther 
understood  that  this  was  so.  He  had  no 
knowledge  of  our  modern  historical  criticism, 
and  he  had  very  little  knowledge  of  philo¬ 
sophy;  but  the  rough,  keen  instinct  of  the 
man  took  him  back  to  that  point,  and 
made  him  find  the  foundation  of  his  faith 
in  the  fact  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  Son 
of  man. 

But  the  Reformers  approached  Jesus 
Christ  not  only  in  this  way,  from  the  side 
of  history,  but  from  the  side  of  their  own 
experience.  One  of  their  great  principles 
is  that  knowledge  of  Christ  is  direct  and 
personal.  So  Jesus  Christ  was  to  them 
first  of  all,  not  as  he  was  to  the  schoolmen, 
the  second  Person  in  the  Trinity,  but  the 
Saviour  from  sin.  Very  much  depends  on 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  REFORMATION  213 


the  angle  or  point  of  view  from  which  men 
look  up  to  Jesus  Christ.  The  man  who 
always  looks  at  Him  simply  from  the 
intellectual  standpoint,  anxious  only  to  give 
Him  His  right  position  in  the  Godhead, 
may  be  very  orthodox,  but  it  will  not 
necessarily  follow  that  he  knows  very  much 
of  Jesus  Christ.  But  the  man  who  looks  at 
Him  from  the  standpoint  of  his  own  sinful 
nature  and  his  own  heart’s  needs  and  his 
own  spiritual  life  and  progress,  and  seeks 
to  relate  Him  first  not  so  much  to  God  as  to 
man,  that  is  the  man  who  knows  something 
of  Jesus  Christ.  It  is  good  to  read  the  way 
in  which  some  of  these  old  Reformers  de¬ 
scribed  the  new  light,  the  amazing  and 
intolerable  light  that  came  to  them  when 
they  learned  to  look  at  Jesus  Christ  from 
the  standpoint  of  their  sin  and  their  needs. 
It  is  a  matter  of  common  knowledge  how 
in  Luther’s  experience  the  experience  of  the 
Apostle  Paul  was  almost  repeated  in  the 
strangest  and  most  effective  fashion.  He, 
like  the  Apostle,  had  been  living  the  life 


214  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  REFORMATION 


of  the  law,  had  been  trying  to  win  favour 
with  God  by  doing  things,  had  been  trying 
to  make  himself  a  clean  and  honest  man  by 
his  own  efforts,  and  had  failed.  He  was 
utterly  miserable,  because  of  his  failures; 
and — as  Paul  was  too — perhaps  Luther  was 
miserable  because  of  the  failure  of  the 
whole  Church  and  the  people  round  about 
him.  He  tells  us  how  his  desire  is  to  do 
anything  and  everything  that  this  Christ 
requires.  Under  the  impulse  of  it  he  takes 
his  journey  up  to  Rome  that  he  may  obtain 
whatever  merit  the  pilgrimage  may  bring. 
He  tells  us  with  what  feelings  he  faced  the 
Eternal  City,  and  journeyed  on  the  road 
trodden  by  all  the  pilgrims  of  the  past.  In 
order,  as  he  says,  to  leave  no  stone  unturned, 
and  to  do  whatever  a  man  might,  he  began 
to  crawl  on  his  hands  and  knees  up  that 
sacred  Santa  Scala  staircase,  in  the  vain 
hope  that  he  might  win  peace  and  freedom 
from  purgatory.  It  was  as  he  was  creeping 
up  that  a  voice  came  to  him :  “  The  just  shall 
live  by  faith.”  And  he  felt  in  a  moment 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  REFORMATION  215 

what  a  fool  he  had  been.  He  realised  how 
it  was  not  penance  or  pilgrimage  or  any¬ 
thing  that  he  could  do  that  would  bring 
him  nearer  to  Jesus  Christ.  What  he  needed 
was  not  what  he  was  doing,  but  what  Christ 
had  done.  From  that  moment,  just  as  from 
the  moment  when  the  Apostle  Paul  saw  a 
light  on  the  road  to  Damascus,  his  whole 
horizon  changed.  Life  became  a  new  thing 
to  him,  and  he  understood  that  his  business 
henceforth  was  simply  to  accept  in  grati¬ 
tude  the  grace  and  pity  of  God,  and  not  to 
go  on  striving  to  work  out  his  own  salvation 
and  so  attempt  an  impossible  task.  Thus 
the  essence  of  the  work  of  Jesus  Christ  came 
for  Luther  to  be  the  fact  that  in  Him  God 
was  giving  Himself  to  and  for  men,  and 
that  in  Him  there  was  no  longer  any  con¬ 
demnation  for  sin,  but  an  utter  and  absolute 
expression  of  the  love  of  God.  As  he  puts 
it,  using  the  Apostle  Paul’s  words,  he  was 
justified  by  faith.  And  for  that  reason  the 
word  justification  became  the  great  key¬ 
word  of  the  Reformation.  It  helped  men  to 


216  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  REFORMATION 


see,  as  Luther  and  Calvin,  Melanchthon  and 
Zwingli  all  saw,  that  God  was  dealing  with 
men,  not  in  virtue  of  what  they  were,  and 
not  in  virtue  of  what  they  could  do,  but  in 
virtue  of  what  they  were  in  Christ.  God 
regarded  men  in  the  light  of  the  possibility 
and  the  hope  that  was  in  them,  through 
that  which  Christ  had  come  to  do  for,  in, 
and  by  them.  In  this  way  salvation  became 
a  possible  thing,  not  to  be  won,  but  to  be 
received  freely,  without  money  and  without 
price.  Faith  to  Luther  became,  thus,  not 
belief  in  the  second  Person  in  the  Trinity, 
nor  belief  in  a  creed  of  any  description,  but 
trusting  in  Christ,  taking  Christ  at  His  word ; 
and  when  faith  becomes  that  for  a  man  he 
knows  something  of  what  both  justification 
and  salvation  may  mean.  To  quote  Melanch- 
thon’s  great  saying  :  “  Christum  cognoscere 
est  beneficia  ejus  cognoscere,  non  naturas 
ejus,  modos  incarnationis  contueri.” 

Once  more,  the  Reformers  approached 
the  question  of  the  Person  of  Christ,  and  the 
relation  of  Jesus  Christ  to  the  Godhead,  not, 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  REFORMATION  217 

as  the  schoolmen  did,  from  the  standpoint 
of  God  first,  but  from  the  standpoint  of 
Jesus  first.  The  problem  of  the  theolo¬ 
gians  had  been  how,  given  God,  to  relate 
Jesus  Christ  His  Son  to  Him.  The  problem 
for  Luther  and  the  Reformers  generally  was 
how,  given  Jesus  Christ,  to  conceive  God 
through  Him.  The  difference  here  is  all- 
important.  It  amounts  to  the  difference 
between  theology  and  experience.  The  Re¬ 
formers  start  with  Jesus  Christ.  He  is 
their  datum  and  the  foundation  of  their 
system.  They  begin  with  the  history  of 
Jesus  Christ,  His  Person,  His  teaching,  and 
His  work.  In  this  they  see  His  divine  grace 
manifested  in  the  lives  of  men  and  women. 
It  is  an  expression  of  God  in  human  terms. 
We  might  apply  to  Luther  that  most  modern 
word  of  the  theologians,  that  Jesus  Christ 
had  for  him  the  religious  value  of  God.  He 
only  saw  God  as  He  was  in  Jesus  Christ. 
His  theology,  in  other  words,  was  a  Chris- 
tology  ;  his  theology  was  Christo-centric  in  a 
very  real  sense,  and  it  was  that  which  made 


218  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  REFORMATION 


the  distinctive  note  of  the  Reformation. 
From  that  time  until  now  the  corner-stone 
of  the  Christian  faith  has  been  the  concep¬ 
tion  men  have  formed  of  Christ  and  His 
work  in  relation  not  merely  to  God  but  to 
mankind.  If  men  are  to  be  Christians 
they  must  make  Christ  their  interpreter 
both  of  God  and  of  man.  They  must  see 
God  in  Christ ;  for,  when  it  comes  to  the  point, 
what  do  they  know  of  God  save  through 
Jesus  Christ  ?  No  doubt  thev  have  the 

4s 

revelation  that  came  through  Moses  and 
through  the  prophets,  through  Mohammed 
and  Buddha  and  the  great  religions  of  the 
East.  There  is  very  much  to  be  learned 
about  man’s  thought  of  God  from  all  these 
sources,  and  in  all  these  ways  it  is  good  to 
learn.  But,  after  all,  there  is  no  word,  there 
or  anywhere,  so  direct,  so  absolute,  so  final 
as  the  word  that  came  in  the  fullness  of  the 
times  through  His  Son.  We  have  not 
advanced  beyond  that  yet.  The  Reformers 
felt  that  they  were  almost  on  dangerous 
ground  in  suggesting  such  a  possibility, 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  REFORMATION  219 


and  they  tried  to  prove  that  there  was 
nothing  in  the  new  learning  of  their  day 
that  could  serve  as  a  substitute  for  the 
truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus.  So,  amid  the  myriad 
voices  of  our  own  day  the  word  of  God  in 
Jesus  Christ  still  makes  its  appeal  to  the 
human  heart.  Ultimately,  and  in  its  rela¬ 
tion  to  life,  that  word  is  ethical,  and  good¬ 
ness  and  holiness  are  the  same  all  the  world 
over.  The  universality  of  Jesus  Christ  is 
seen  in  the  fact  that  He  deals  with  that 
which  is  fundamental  in  human  nature,  and 
that  He  can  appeal  to  men  of  every  class 
and  kind.  So  long  as  we  begin  with  Jesus 
Christ  and  lead  up  from  Him  to  God,  we 
are  in  a  position  that  no  advance  of  hu¬ 
man  thought,  however  much  it  may  modify 
our  outlook,  standpoint,  and  conceptions, 
will  be  able  to  disturb.  There  are  some 
characteristic  words  of  Luther’s  which  are 
wonderfully  true  still,  and  give  the  central 
position  which  he  occupied  in  regard  to  Jesus 
Christ.  “  To  know  Jesus,”  he  says,  “  in 
the  true  way  means  to  know  that  He  died 


220  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  REFORMATION 

for  us.  There  are  manv  of  vou  who 

•y 

say,  6  Christ  is  a  Man  of  this  kind  :  He  is 
God’s  Son,  was  born  of  a  pure  virgin,  be¬ 
came  man,  died,  rose  again  from  the  dead,’ 
and  so  forth  :  that  is  all  nothing.  But 
when  we  truly  say  that  He  is  Christ,  we 
mean  that  He  was  given  for  us,  without 
any  works  of  ours ;  that  without  any  merits 
of  ours  He  has  won  for  us  the  Spirit  of  God, 
and  has  made  us  children  of  God,  so  that 
we  might  have  a  gracious  God,  might  with 
Him  become  lords  over  all  things  in  heaven 
and  on  earth,  and,  besides,  might  have  eternal 
life  through  Christ — that  is  faith,  and  that 
is  true  knowledge  of  Christ.”  In  other 
words,  Luther’s  religion  must  be  distin¬ 
guished  from  his  theology.  It  was  rooted 
in  experience,  and  his  knowledge  of  God  in 
Christ  so  attained  was  surer  and  more 
vital  than  any  that  men  could  obtain  by 
hearsay  or  intellectual  effort. 

The  consequence  of  all  this  was  a  very 
great  change  in  the  whole  outlook  and 
standpoint  of  the  Christian  Church.  This 


THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  REFORMATION  221 

new  conception  of  Christ  and  of  God  in 
Christ,  and  the  sense  that  Christ  was  to  be 
known  mainly  through  the  experience  of  His 
work  in  the  human  heart  altered  the  whole 
face  of  Christianity.  The  gulf  between  God 
and  man  was  bridged.  The  old  puzzle  in 
regard  to  the  Godhead  ceased  to  be  a  puzzle, 
or  at  any  rate  ceased  to  be  pressing.  The 
priest,  who  had  had  so  much  power  as  long 
as  dogma  reigned,  became  an  impertinence, 
and  the  old  system  of  approach  to  God,  the 
saints,  and  the  indulgences,  and  all  the 
paraphernalia  of  dogmatism — because  these 
two  things,  dogma  and  priestcraft,  are 
intimately  related — became  as  rubbish  and 
had  to  be  cast  away.  Thus  there  sprang  up 
in  the  Church  a  living  faith  in  Jesus  Christ 
as  the  Saviour  of  man,  the  Inspirer  of  the 
human  soul,  the  Source  of  grace,  and  righte¬ 
ousness,  and  hope,  that  made  grim,  strong 
men,  made  heroes,  martyrs,  and  saints,  and 
stirred  like  a  ferment  the  whole  of  Protestant 
Europe.  This  new  faith  became  the  main¬ 
spring  of  all  our  modern  life,  and  it  is  not 


222  THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  REFORMATION 

dead  yet.  Out  of  all  the  trouble  and 
distress  in  the  Christian  Church  of  to-day, 
out  of  the  theological  turmoil  which  bulks 
so  largely  in  the  minds  of  many  people 
good  will  come  if  and  as  the  Christian 
Church  remains  true  to  that  central  position, 
the  experience  of  the  grace  of  God  in  Jesus 
Christ,  and  devotion  to  the  Person  of  Jesus 
Christ,  Son  of  God,  Son  of  man,  Saviour  of 
the  world. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


THE  CHRIST  OF  TO-DAY 


CHAPTER  VIII 


THE  CHRIST  OF  TO-DAY 


Jesus  Christ,  the  same  yesterday,  and  to-day,  yea,  and 
for  ever. — Her.  xiii.  8. 


E  have  been  studying  the  various 

%j  o 


aspects  under  which  Jesus  Christ 


has  been  manifested  to  men  in  different 
ages  since  His  coming  into  the  world.  We 
have  examined  some  of  His  interpreters  and 
the  methods  of  their  interpretation,  and  we 
have  now,  if  possible,  to  complete  the 
process.  In  all  this  investigation  it  should 
have  become  clear  that  we  have  been  dealing 
throughout  with  the  same  Christ.  We  have 
seen  Him  manifesting  Himself,  or  being 
manifested,  in  very  many  different  forms. 
He  appears  in  one  form  to  the  Jew,  in 
another  to  the  Greek ;  in  one  form  to  the 
Church  of  the  first  century,  and  in  another 


15 


225 


226  THE  CHRIST  OF  TO-DAY 

to  the  Church  of  the  fourth  century ;  but  in 
all  the  forms  it  is  the  same  Christ  who 
appears.  When,  therefore,  we  speak  of  the 
Christ  of  any  age,  or  any  time,  or  of  any 
section  of  the  Christian  Church,  we  do  not 
mean  that  we  divide  the  body  of  Christ, 
or  that  we  split  up  the  personality  of  Christ  ; 
we  only  mean  that  His  appeal  to  man  and  to 
the  human  consciousness  is  so  varied  that 
no  two  persons  ever  see  Him  quite  in  the 
same  way.  Men  and  communities  alike 
approach  Him,  as  it  were,  from  different 
points  of  view.  Each  of  us  has  his  own 
point  of  view,  and  therefore  every  man  and 
every  age  has  his  or  its  Christ. 

Our  object  at  the  present  time  is  to  try 
and  discover  what  is  the  appeal  of  Jesus 
Christ  to  this  present  age.  It  is  not  that  we 
worship  a  different  Christ  from  the  Christ  of 
the  first  century,  or  of  the  fourth  century,  or 
of  the  Reformation  time,  but  that  this  same 
Christ  appeals  to  us  to-day  as  He  appealed 
to  the  men  of  those  ages  in  the  past,  and  that 
His  appeal  to  us  is  special,  peculiar  to  our 


THE  CHRIST  OF  TO-DAY 


227 


need  and  to  our  time,  one  that  only  we  can 
listen  to,  and  one  that  only  we  can  under¬ 
stand  and  appreciate.  The  supreme  task 
of  the  Christian  Church  in  these  days  is,  so 
to  speak,  to  rediscover  Jesus  Christ  for 
herself.  And  in  the  same  way  the  supreme 
task  of  the  individual  Christian  is  to  listen 
to  the  word  which  Jesus  Christ  speaks,  and 
speaks  to  him.  Only,  it  is  necessary  that  we 
should  understand,  as  did  the  first  followers 
of  Jesus,  that  His  activity  is  not  over.  He 
ever  liveth,  and  as  long  as  He  lives  He  speaks. 
What  His  message  is  we  as  Christians  have 
to  inquire. 

The  question  is  undoubtedly  a  difficult 
one.  We  have  already  seen  some  of  the 
reasons  for  the  difficulty  of  it,  and  we  have 
to  add  to  them  this  special  difficulty,  that 
we  are  living  in  a  time  when  historical 
criticism  has  been  applied  to  the  story  of 
Jesus  Christ  in  the  most  searching  and 
complete  fashion.  The  consequence  is  that 
there  are  many  who  are  inclined  to  assume 
that  we  have  only  the  shreds  and  patches  of  a 


228 


THE  CHRIST  OF  TO-DAY 


Christ  left,  that  at  the  very  best  we  know 
next  to  nothing  about  Him  and  can  say 
very  little  with  any  sort  of  certainty  about 
His  person  or  His  teaching.  It  has  to  be 
admitted  that  there  is  a  certain  truth  in  this. 
We  can  no  longer  go  back,  as  our  fathers 
went  back,  to  certain  proof-texts  in  regard  to 
Jesus  Christ  and  believe  implicitly  what  they 
assert.  It  is  impossible  any  longer  to  use 
the  Scriptures  quite  as  they  used  them.  It 
is  impossible  any  longer  to  be  absolutely  sure 
in  regard  to  certain  points  in  the  teaching 
of  Jesus  Christ  that  they  are  really  His. 
But  when  all  that  has  been  admitted  there 
is  at  least  this  left,  that,  taking  the  very 
minimum  which  historical  criticism  will 
allow  us,  we  still  have  remaining  the  Person 
of  Jesus  Christ,  and  we  still  have  ground  for 
the  conclusion  that  that  Person  is  the 
supreme  Person  in  human  history  as  we  know 
it.  There  is  a  fact  of  Christ  which  remains 
amid  all  the  many  interpretations  given  of 
it. 

That  is,  no  doubt,  a  great  deal  to  say. 


229 


THE  CHRIST  OF  TO-DAY 

But  it  is  not  easy  to  see  how  any  man  can 
honestly  investigate  the  Synoptic  Gospels 
and  the  history  of  the  early  Christian  teach¬ 
ing  and  come  to  any  other  conclusion  than 
that  while  here  and  there  he  has  to  strip  off 
certain  details  of  which  he  cannot  be  sure, 
when  he  has  stripped  them  off  the  person¬ 
ality  of  Jesus  remains  ;  and  it  is  that  with 
which  we  are  concerned.  When  criticism 
has  done  its  worst  there  is  left  this  potent 
force,  the  Person  of  Jesus  Christ,  a  Man, 
who  was  as  no  man  has  ever  been,  before  or 
since  ;  and  there  is  also  left  the  effect,  the 
work  of  this  Person  in  human  history.  No 
philosophy  of  history  will  allow  us  to  con¬ 
fine  this  Person  to  the  thirty  odd  years  He 
lived  on  earth.  We  would  not  do  so  with 
any  other  person  in  history.  If  we  would 
study  Napoleon  and  all  that  Napoleon  stands 
for,  we  must  take  into  account  his  history 
and  influence  from  the  day  when  he  was 
born  to  the  present  hour.  And  if  that  is  so 
with  this  mere  man,  how  much  more  so  with 
the  Christ  ?  To  know  Him  it  is  necessary 


230 


THE  CHRIST  OF  TO-DAY 


to  study  the  whole  of  His  influence  in  human 
history  from  the  hour  He  entered  into  the 
world.  We  begin  with  the  Person  of  Jesus 
Christ,  that  potent  personality  which  has 
made  itself  felt  in  many  human  lives,  and 
we  have  to  ask  as  to  what  He  stands  for 
and  how  He  appeals  to  the  man  of  to-day. 

First,  then,  we  must  realise  that  Jesus 
Christ  is  still,  as  He  was  to  the  men  who  first 
knew  Him  and  to  the  men  of  the  Reforma¬ 
tion,  a  living  Person.  It  is  necessary  in 
these  days  to  lay  some  stress  upon  the  fact 
that  Jesus  Christ  is  a  living  force  and  avail¬ 
able  for  human  needs.  The  late  Dr.  Dale 
tells  how,  once  meditating  an  Easter  sermon 
in  his  study,  he  was  walking  up  and  down 
when  there  suddenly  flashed  across  his  mind 
the  conviction  that  Jesus  Christ  was  alive. 
This  conviction,  he  said,  altered  his  whole 
horizon  and  changed  the  character  of  his 
preaching  from  that  time  onwards.  It  is 
some  such  experience  as  this  that  the 
Christian  Church  needs  to  go  through. 
There  has  been  one  evil  result  of  recent 


THE  CHRIST  OF  TO-DAY 


231 


historical  criticism  of  the  Gospels.  Men 
have  too  often  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
Jesus  Christ  is  some  Person  buried  away  in 
the  infinitely  distant  past,  and  that  they 
have  to  go  back  and  grope  for  Him  there 
if  they  would  discover  Him  at  all.  Now, 
that  is  not  so. 

The  real  cry  of  the  Christian  Church  is 
not  44  Back  to  Jesus  Christ.”  It  is  no 
question  of  going  back.  The  real  cry  is, 
44  Sirs,  we  would  see  Jesus,  and  see  Him 
now,  and  hear  Him  speak  in  the  language 
of  to-day.”  And  the  real  need  of  the 
Church  and  of  the  world  to-day  is  to  come 
into  touch  with  what  is  called  sometimes 
the  living  Christ.  The  Christ  of  to-dav 
must  be  One  who  has  become  part  and 
parcel  of  our  human  environment,  who  is 
still  a  force,  the  effect  of  which  we  can  feel 
for  ourselves — a  Christ  who  is  for  us  not 
merely  a  memory,  not  merely  a  sacred 
figure  with  a  halo  round  it  that  we  can 
bow  down  before  in  reverence,  but  a  power 
that  touches  us,  and  that  we  can  touch, 


232  THE  CHRIST  OF  TO-DAY 

and  of  which  we  can  have  real  and  ex¬ 
perimental  knowledge.  The  world  as  well 
as  the  Church  needs  that,  because  the 
real  trouble  about  this  modern  age  of 
ours  is  its  curious  limitation.  The  sense 
of  horizon  has  almost  passed  out  of  human 
life.  Most  men  and  women  are  living  verv 
hurriedly  for  the  present ;  the  future  has 
but  little  concern  for  them.  They  need, 
above  everything  else,  to  get  back  the  old 
sense  of  the  seers,  of  the  men  who  looked 
beyond,  the  sense  which  Tennyson  felt  so 
keenly  when  he  said  :  “  The  far  future  is 
my  world  always.”  No  human  life  that  is 
worth  living  can  be  lived  on  the  basis  of 
the  present  alone.  It  is  not  a  question  of 
rewards  or  punishments  merely,  or  of  what 
is  to  come  after  death  ;  it  is  a  question  of 
perspective.  Life  with  nine-tenths  of  the 
men  and  women  around  us  to-day  is  like 
one  of  those  Chinese  pictures  that  have 
no  perspective,  a  queer,  twisted,  huddled, 
maimed,  and  monstrous  thing.  They  need 
to  get  back  to  the  standpoint  of  the  Christ 


THE  CHRIST  OF  TO-DAY 


233 


who  saw  things  sub  specie  eternitatis — in 
the  form  and  in  the  light  of  eternity.  That 
is  life,  and  apart  from  that  there  is  no 
life  worth  the  name.  The  word  of  Christ 
to  the  world  to-day,  as  it  has  been  so  often 
in  the  past,  is  just  the  great  word  “  Life.” 
It  is  life,  more  life  and  fuller,  that  we  want ; 
and  the  prerogative  and  glory  of  the  Christ 
is  that  He  has  been  able  to  give  this  life 
to  men  and  women.  They  have  found  in 
Him  a  life  more  abundant,  that  has  the 
power  to  lift  poor  human  creatures  out  of 
the  gutter  and  set  them  by  the  side  of 
kings,  has  pointed  out  to  men  and  women 
a  vast  and  infinite  horizon,  and  has  set 
the  stamp  of  His  glory  on  some  of  the 
lowliest  of  human  foreheads.  That  is  what 
the  world  to-day  needs.  As  we  look  round 
on  this  human  society  in  the  midst  of 
which  we  live,  what  a  spectacle  it  presents. 
The  men  and  women  here  struggle  on  this 
little  globe,  like  ants  on  an  ant-hill.  Life 
is  full  of  competition  and  strife,  of  passion, 
and  greed  for  wealth,  and  the  eagerness 


234 


THE  CHRIST  OF  TO-DAY 


of  new  discovery.  There  are  whole  classes 
of  people  to  whom  life  is  like  the  crackling 
of  thorns  under  a  pot.  They  have  pleasures, 
but  no  deep  and  solid  joys.  They  have  a 
future,  but  no  outlook,  and  their  present 
life  is  but  a  barren  waste.  If  this  con¬ 
dition  is  to  be  altered  it  will  only  be  by 
taking  into  account  that  larger  aspect  of 
things  for  which  Christ  stands,  and  by 
putting  eternity  into  their  hearts.  In  His 
power  to  accomplish  this  for  those  who 
know  Him,  Jesus  Christ  is  the  same  to-day 
as  He  was  yesterday,  and  is  for  ever. 

But  it  is  not  only  in  this  sense  that  Jesus 
Christ  appeals  especially  to  the  men  of 
to-day.  He  appeals  also,  as  He  has  always 
done,  from  the  ethical  standpoint.  The 
power  of  Christ  in  this,  as  in  every  age,  is 
due  to  the  effect  of  His  Gospel  on  the 
development  of  human  character.  Char¬ 
acter  is  the  real  end  of  all  our  achievement 
and  discipline,  and  a  man  without  character 
is  a  man  who  becomes  a  negligible  quantity. 
It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  great 


THE  CHRIST  OF  TO-DAY 


235 


purpose  of  Jesus  Christ  was  to  produce 
in  men  this  invaluable  asset  of  character, 
and  His  best  appeal  and  His  most  needed 
word  to  the  men  of  to-day  is  when  His 
Gospel,  His  message,  is  cast  in  this  ethical 
form.  It  is  not  difficult  to  understand  how 
it  is  chiefly  on  this  ethical  side  that  the 
message  of  Jesus  Christ  appeals.  Take, 
for  instance,  one  of  the  familiar  phrases 
regarding  His  Spirit  in  the  New  Testament. 
He  comes  44  to  convince  the  world  of  sin.” 
The  message  of  Jesus  Christ  to  this  present 
age  can  be  conveyed  in  no  better  term 
than  that.  If  He  has  anything  at  all  to 
say  to  this  age,  it  is  to  convince  it  of  sin ; 
and  the  reason  why  we  say  that  is,  that 
this  age  wants  to  be  convinced  of  sin  perhaps 
less  than  any  other  in  the  past.  The 
famous  saying  of  Anselm,  44  Nondum  con- 
si  derasti  quanti  ponderis  sit  peccatum,” 
is  strictly  applicable  to  the  present  time. 
The  most  deadly  diseases  are  those  which 
conceal  themselves  from  the  sufferer  till 
it  is  too  late  to  effect  a  cure.  Sin  has  this 


236 


THE  CHRIST  OF  TO-DAY 


quality  of  concealment ;  and  the  power  of 
the  Gospel  comes  from  the  fact  that  it 
can  diagnose  and  discover  the  disease. 
The  question  must  be  asked  therefore  : 
What  is  it  that  is  making  people  in  these 
days  so  shy  of  sin  ?  And  the  answer  is 
to  be  found  in  that  shallowness  of  outlook 
and  that  effort  to  be  satisfied  with  the 
present  of  which  we  have  been  speaking. 
We  are  told  we  must  adapt  our  message 
to  the  age.  No  doubt  the  message  needs 
to  be  cast  in  the  language  that  the  age 
can  understand  ;  but  it  does  not  follow  at 
all  that  the  message  will  be  the  one  that 
the  age  wishes  to  hear.  It  should  be  the 
one  that  the  age  needs  to  hear  ;  and  the 
measure  of  the  lack  of  appreciation  of  the 
sense  of  sin  in  any  age  or  in  any  man  is 
the  measure  of  his  need  for  the  Gospel, 
which  will  convince  him  of  sin,  and  drive 
him  to  that  point  whither  he  is  so  reluctant 
to  go.  The  Lord  Jesus  Christ  comes  to 
do  that  still.  This  is  sometimes  called 
the  old-fashioned  Gospel,  as  though  it  were 


THE  CHRIST  OF  TO-DAY  237 

out  of  date.  It  is  true  that  it  can  no 
longer  be  preached  quite  in  the  terms  that 
were  current  in  earlier  days  ;  but  in  essence 
the  message  of  Jesus  Christ  to  the  world 
is  still  one  of  repentance  and  remission  of 
sins.  That  is  to  say,  His  message  is  cast 
in  ethical  terms.  There  is  no  reason  to 
be  afraid  of  this,  and  still  less  reason  to 
repudiate  what  is  sometimes  called  an 
Ethical  Gospel.  We  must  learn  to  express 
salvation  in  terms  of  character.  Now,  to 
the  man  who  says  that  he  is  perfect,  that 
all  is  right  with  him,  and  that  he  does  not 
need  anything,  and  is  happy  enough  as  he 
is,  we  have  no  ground  of  ethical  appeal. 
The  only  chance  of  discovering  character  in 
a  man  is  to  make  him  feel  how  low  down  he 
is,  and  what  a  great  height  he  has  to  climb. 
That  is  the  sense  of  sin.  There  is  little 
or  no  prospect  of  moral  advance  in  a  man 
who  says  he  is  perfectly  right  with  God, 
that  he  has  no  need  for  anxiety  about 
his  relations  with  God.  He  is  among  the 
righteous  who  need  no  repentance.  But 


238  THE  CHRIST  OF  TO-DAY 

for  the  man  who  prostrates  himself  before 
his  God,  crying  “  Unclean,”  there  is  a 
chance,  and  that  man  has  the  beginnings 
in  him  of  the  highest  devotion  and  purest 
life.  It  is  this  work  that  Jesus  Christ 
comes  to  do ;  and  if  the  preaching  of  the 
present  day  is  to  take  any  real  hold,  it 
must  be  preaching  which  will  convince 
men  of  sin,  and  will  tell  comfortable, 
respectable  people  what  a  long  road  they 
have  to  travel  before  they  can  be  even 
what  they  seem.  Our  Lord’s  parable  of 
the  cup  and  the  platter  is  strictly  applicable 
to  the  circumstances  of  to-day.  Men  need 
to  strip  off  the  specious  outward  appearance 
and  see  themselves  as  they  really  are. 
There  is  a  self-revelation  that  is  like  the 
turning  up  of  some  stone  that  has  long 
lain  on  the  ground.  To  move  it  is  to 
discover  the  creeping,  noisome  things  that 
had  gathered  there.  And  that  is  what 
Christ  does  for  men.  To  change  the  image, 
He  holds  up  to  them  the  mirror  of  His 
purity,  and  the  most  outwardly  dignified  of 


THE  CHRIST  OF  TO-DAY  239 

men  can  see  then  what  manner  of  man  he 
is.  The  discipline  is  one  that  is  really 
needed  to-day.  Many  of  us  are  deceived, 
and  living  in  a  fool’s  paradise.  We  think 
ourselves  better  than  we  really  are,  and 
measuring  ourselves  among  ourselves,  we 
are  not  wise.  The  Christ  of  to-day  comes 
again  as  Pie  came  of  old,  on  the  same 
business,  and  men  still  say :  “  Depart  from 
me,  for  I  am  a  sinful  man,  0  Lord.”  Some¬ 
times  the  best  day  ever  a  man  had  is  when 
he  has  learned  to  say  that,  because  there 
is  the  beginning  of  the  new  life  and  of  the 
higher  ideals  and  of  the  nobler  character 
which  Christ  can  bring. 

O 

Then  there  is  one  other  direction  in 
which  the  teaching  of  Christ  is  especially 
applicable  to  the  present  time,  and  that 
is  in  regard  to  all  those  matters  which  we 
are  accustomed  to  sum  up  under  the  wide 
term  social.  This  is  an  age  when  the 
social  side  of  human  life  has  come  to  the 
front  as  perhaps  never  in  the  past.  The 
familiar  expression,  “  We  are  all  socialists 


240  THE  CHRIST  OF  TO-DAY 

now,”  has  very  considerable  truth  behind 
it.  We  are  all  learning  to  look  at  things 
from  the  social  point  of  view.  We  have 
to  learn  the  lesson  of  the  solidarity  of  the 
human  race  and  of  society.  Everything  is 
now  seen  from  the  standpoint  of  society ; 
and  the  problem  that  faces  the  most 
thoughtful  people  at  the  present  time  is 
the  social  problem — the  problem  of  what 
is  to  become  of  men  and  women  in  this 
complex  and  fearful  machine  we  call  modern 
society.  Now,  Jesus  Christ  has  a  special 
message  on  those  lines  to  this  present  age ; 
and  the  solution  of  these  problems  that 
vex  us  so  much  and  on  which  we  spend  so 
many  hours  of  study,  is  not  likely  to  be 
found  along  any  other  road  than  the  road 
of  Jesus  Christ,  Son  of  God,  and  Saviour 
of  the  world.  And  it  will  come  about  in 
two  ways.  First  there  must  be  the  dis¬ 
covery  that  underneath  what  is  called  the 
social  problem  there  is  a  moral  and  spiritual 
problem.  That  is  the  point  that  Jesus 
Christ  insists  upon.  Men  come  to  Him 


241 


THE  CHRIST  OF  TO-DAY 

maimed,  palsied,  and  helpless  human  beings, 
and  He  says  to  them  all,  “  Son,  thy  sins 
be  forgiven  thee.”  That  comes  first.  And 
our  social  reformers  must  learn  to  take 
things  in  their  proper  order.  Many  of 
them  by  this  time  are  tired  of  tinkering 
with  the  outside.  Those  who  have  ever 
tried  to  regenerate  a  sunken  human  being, 
some  miserable  drunkard  or  wastrel,  know 
what  this  means.  They  put  him  into  a 
clean  house  and  into  clean  clothes  and 
give  him  a  fresh  job,  and  they  know,  to 
their  sorrow,  what  the  end  of  it  is.  The 
work  goes  on  over  and  over  again,  until 
they  are  sick,  and  weary,  and  in  despair. 
What  is  needed  is  a  new  man,  as  well  as 
a  new  environment;  and  the  thing  Jesus 
Christ  is  insisting  upon  with  every  one  who 
listens  to  His  word  is  that  we  must  begin 
with  the  new  man  first,  and  be  radical  in 
our  treatment  of  the  problem,  if  we  are 
to  make  any  change.  It  is  more  than 
merely  fanciful  to  say  that  the  key  to  the 
solution  of  all  our  social  questions  is  to 

16 


242 


THE  CHRIST  OF  TO-DAY 


be  found  in  that  word  to  which  Jesus 
gives  so  strange  and  wonderful  a  new 
meaning,  that  most  familiar  word  44  Love.” 
There  is  much  talk  to-day  about  brotherhood, 
and  men  imagine  that  if  the  brotherhood 
of  mankind  could  be  in  some  way  recognised 
and  acted  upon  the  millennium  would  come. 
They  are  right.  It  is  true  enough  so  long 
as  brotherhood  means  love.  And  Christ’s 
message  to  society  is  that  it  is  to  re-establish 
itself  on  a  basis  of  love.  It  does  not  need 
very  much  acumen  to  see  that  if  this  were 
done  the  world  would  be  turned  upside 
down.  When  men  come  to  reflect  upon 
this,  they  generally  reach  the  conclusion  that 
to  carry  it  out  would  mean  a  revolution. 
Again  they  are  right.  A  very  little  study 
of  history  will  convince  us  that  Christianity 
is  a  great  revolutionary  force,  if  it  is  any¬ 
thing.  The  Church  is  afraid  of  this,  and 
tries  to  run  the  teaching  of  Jesus  through 
little  conventional  channels  of  her  own  ; 
but  the  time  is  coming  when  it  will  burst 
these  banks ;  and  when  once  the  law  of  Jesus 


THE  CHRIST  OF  TO-DAY 


243 


Christ  is  applied  to  human  life  the  revolution 
will  be  at  hand.  It  will  be  a  bloodless 
one,  but  it  will  be  very  real.  It  is  useless 
for  men  to  blame  Christianity  and  Christ 
for  the  present  condition  of  society.  Some¬ 
times  the  newspapers  tell  us  this,  and 
complain  that  Christianity  has  been  tried 
long  enough,  and  is  responsible  for  the  social 
order  we  see  around  us.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  Chnstiamty  has  never  been  tried. 
Men  have  not  yet  learnt  to  love  their  neigh¬ 
bours  as  themselves,  and  men  of  the  world 
would  tell  us  that  on  that  basis  business 
would  be  impossible.  But  the  concern  of 

Jesus  Christ  is  not  that  business  mav  be 

%/ 

carried  on,  but  that  men  and  women  should 
be  sons  and  daughters  of  the  living  God. 
The  message  that  is  being  more  and  more 
clearly  heard  by  this  age,  through  all  its 
dim  social  aspirations,  is  that  old  message 
of  Jesus  Christ,  that  men  and  women  must 
learn  to  love  God  first,  and  their  neighbour 
next,  with  all  their  heart  and  strength,  and 
to  carry  out  life  on  that  basis.  We  shall 


244 


THE  CHRIST  OF  TO-DAY 


come  to  that  some  day,  and  meanwhile 
the  business  of  every  Christian  is  to  start 
as  near  to  it  as  he  can  and  do  the  best  he 
can  to  bear  another’s  burdens,  and  so 
fulfil,  each  up  to  his  strength,  Christ’s  law. 

This  is  an  age  which  loves  what  are  called 
facts;  and  the  fact  of  Jesus  Christ,  His 
Person  and  His  teaching,  is  one  that  appeals, 
and  is  appealing,  in  spite  of  all  the  diffi¬ 
culties  caused  by  our  modern  temper  and 
ideals.  But  we  are  accustomed  to  verify 
our  facts,  and  the  power  and  teaching  of 
Jesus  Christ  need  to  be  verified  in  the 
experience  of  every  individual  among  us. 
The  method  of  Jesus  when  He  was  here 
on  earth  was  to  bind  men  to  Himself  by 
the  bonds  of  a  living  loyalty,  and  the 
method  holds  good  still.  Love  to  Christ, 
devotion  to  His  Person  and  to  His  aims, 
are  still  the  best  means  of  discovering  the 
truth  of  His  claims,  and  they  are  means 
that  are  within  the  reach  of  every  one. 
Christianity  is  a  system  that  may  be  put 
to  the  proof,  and  no  man  is  entitled  to 


THE  CHRIST  OF  TO-DAY 


245 


judge  it  till  he  has  tested  it  for  himself  by 
the  methods  of  observation  and  experiment. 
As  Seeberg  says,  44  That  is  the  experience 
of  the  divinity  of  Christ.  He,  and  He 
alone  among  all  the  figures  and  powers 
of  life,  constrains  us  to  faith  and  love. 
We  accept  what  He  says  to  us,  wThat  He 
gives  us,  and  what  He  becomes  to  us, 
and  thereby  we  are  inwardly  freed  to 
follow  Him,  to  make  His  goal  ours,  to 
love  God  and  the  brethren  with  holy, 
eternal  love.  That  He  is  the  Lord,  and 
exercises  divine  sway  over  us  we  experience 
in  faith,  and  that  His  goal,  or  the  kingdom 
of  God,  is  the  only  really  precious  good 
we  prove — through  His  power,  and  because 
He  actuates  us  to  it — in  love.  Jesus  Christ 
is  holy  Spirit.  Since  He  penetrates  the 
heart  and  subdues  us,  we  become  free 
from  the  world  and  from  ourselves,  and 
it  is  then  we  feel  ourselves  in  the  sphere 
of  life  upon  the  heights  of  our  existence.”  1 
It  is  obvious,  however,  that  if  Christ  is 

Fundamental  Truths  of  Christianity ,  p.  241. 


246 


THE  CHRIST  OF  TO-DAY 


to  appeal  to  the  present  age  in  such  fashion 
as  we  have  indicated,  and  to  do  for  men  that 
which  they  most  need  to  have  done,  He 
must  be  approached  by  them  as  One  who 
has  the  necessary  authority  and  power. 
The  sign  and  title  of  this  they  may  find  not 
only  in  the  story  of  Him  as  told  in  the  New 
Testament,  but  in  the  long  history  of  His 
influence  in  the  hearts  and  lives  of  His 
followers.  He  speaks  to-day  even  with  an 
added  authority,  because  signs  have  followed 
to  confirm  the  word.  In  the  power  of  the 
Word  made  flesh,  and  of  the  Word  rein¬ 
carnated  in  the  lives  of  men,  we  find  to-dav 
the  connecting  link  between  the  Jesus  of 
history  and  the  Christ  of  faith.  As  Prof. 
Percy  Gardner  has  said  :  “  It  is  a  fatal 
aberration  to  make  the  human  life  of  Jesus 
as  recorded  in  the  Gospels  in  any  way  un¬ 
real  :  we  must  be  content  to  see  in  them  the 
memorials  of  a  human  life,  but  without  sin, 
and  governed  by  a  unity  of  will  with  the 
divine  purposes  which  makes  it  quite  unique. 
Yet  we  in  no  way  transgress  the  canons  of 


THE  CHRIST  OF  TO-DAY  247 

reason  and  of  history  if  we  connect  that 
life  with  the  outpouring  of  a  fresh  tide  of 
spiritual  life  upon  the  world,  which  took 
form  in  the  perpetuation  of  the  spirit  and 
the  obedience  of  Jesus  in  the  inspiration 
of  the  Christian  Church.  He  who  came  to 
the  earth  as  Jesus  has  dwelt  there  to  our 
day  as  Christ.  The  Christian  consciousness 
of  our  day  is  one  with  the  consciousness 
which  has  set  apart  the  followers  of  Christ 
from  the  world  since  the  day  when  the 
apostles  first  realised  that  though  their 
Master  was  hidden  from  sight  he  was  with 
them  until  the  end  of  the  world.” 1 


1  Jesus  or  Christ,  p.  56. 


V 


CONCLUSION 


THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  FAITH 


CONCLUSION 


THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  FAITH 


ISTORY,”  it  has  been  said,  44  is 


an  excellent  cordial  for  drooping 


courage,”  and  the  memory  of  the  past,  with 
its  records  of  struggle  and  triumph  issuing 
ever  in  clearer  light  and  wider  knowledge, 
is  the  best  possible  antidote  against  the 
panic,  unrest,  and  unbelief  which  assail  too 
many  of  us  in  these  days.  It  is  natural 
that  men  should  feel  deeply  about  those 
matters  which  concern  their  highest  interests, 
and  that  Churches  should  resent  wanton 
questioning  of  the  things  most  surely  be¬ 
lieved  among  them.  Loyalty  to  tradition 
and  reverence  for  the  past  are  good  things, 
but  they  may  be  easily  abused  ;  and  when 
they  lead  to  stagnation  of  thought,  and  to  a 
wilful  blinding  of  the  eyes  to  the  light,  the 


251 


252  THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  FAITH 

abuse  of  them  is  palpable.  The  main  con¬ 
tribution  which  the  modern  spirit  has  made 
to  the  mental  outlook  and  equipment  of 
mankind  is  to  be  found  in  the  idea  of  de¬ 
velopment.  The  old  Greek  conception  of  an 
eternal  flux  of  things  has  now  been  trans¬ 
lated  into  the  wider  conception  of  progress. 
Life  can  no  longer  be  regarded  as  a  sea 
with  ebbing  and  advancing  tides,  but  rather 
as  a  river  flowing  from  its  source  in  ever- 
increasing  volume.  And  this  idea  of  con¬ 
tinuous  and  progressive  change  holds  good 
not  merely  of  life,  but  of  thought.  When 
we  deal  with  man’s  thought  of  God  we  have 
to  confess,  with  our  hands  upon  our  mouths, 
that  we  know  only  in  part  and  prophesy  in 
part.  But  we  look  forward  to  a  state  and 
to  a  time  when  that  which  is  in  part  shall 
be  done  away,  and  towards  this  we  move, 
not  by  leaps  and  bounds,  but  with  the  slow 
and  intermittent  advance  of  the  waves  upon 
the  sea-shore. 

In  the  process  of  development  in  the 
physical  world  two  factors  at  least  have 


THE  CHUKCHES  AND  THE  FAITH  253 


always  to  be  taken  into  account.  There 
is  the  organism  with  its  inherent  life-force, 
and  there  is  the  environment  which  helps 
or  hinders,  but  always  modifies  its  growth. 
So  in  studying  the  history  of  man’s  thought 
about  God  we  have  to  distinguish  between 
the  original  deposit,  or  gospel  or  life,  and 
those  surroundings,  individual  or  racial, 
through  which,  or  in  spite  of  which,  it  makes 
its  slow  advance.  The  process  here,  as 
always,  is  one  of  stress  and  struggle.  There 
is  nothing  to  be  alarmed  at  in  this.  While 
there  is  life  there  will  be  conflict,  and  a 
condition  of  unrest  is  always  better  than 
one  of  contentment,  stagnation,  and  death. 
It  is  with  this  unrest  that  we  are  now  con¬ 
cerned,  but  only  within  strict  limits.  We 
have  to  do  with  the  general  intellectual 
advance  only  at  the  point  where  it  comes 
into  contact  with  the  Christian  Gospel  and 
the  Christian  Church.  We  have  to  ask 
ourselves  as  to  the  relation  of  Christian 
Churches,  organised  on  the  basis  of  an 
earlier  world- conception,  to  those  later  and 


254  THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  FAITH 


newer  conceptions  implied  in  recent  intel¬ 
lectual  advance.  And  in  doing  so  we  must 
remember  that  we  are  dealing,  not  with 
unconscious  and  incalculable  forces,  but 
with  a  situation  in  which  the  human  will  is 
among  the  factors  to  be  taken  into  account. 
The  question  is  not  merely  whether  organised 
Christianity  can  show  herself  adaptable  to 
the  needs  of  modern  time,  but  whether  and 
how  far  she  will. 

We  are  accustomed  to  say  that  Chris¬ 
tianity  is  a  revealed  religion.  But  it  is  an 
axiom  of  any  doctrine  of  revelation  that 
God  speaks  to  men  in  language  which  they 
can  understand.  The  Christian  revelation 
has  its  source  and  centre  in  Jesus  Christ. 
He  is  to  men  the  Word  of  God.  But  both 
His  speech  and  person  were  strictly  adapted 
to  the  age  at  which  He  came  into  history. 
He  was  no  superman,  but  a  Jew  of  Palestine 
in  the  first  decades  of  this  era.  His  speech 
was  no  Volapiik  or  Esperanto,  but  the  simple 
Aramaic  of  His  day.  But  these  things  are 
only  of  the  form,  not  of  the  essence,  of  His 


THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  FAITH  255 


revelation.  They  became  the  vehicle  of 
abiding  and  eternal  truth.  So  as  Jesus 
spake  to  the  men  of  His  time  in  the  language 
and  under  the  forms  of  their  age,  His 
followers  for  all  time  have  to  speak  of  Him 
in  terms  which  their  contemporaries  use 
and  can  understand.  The  varying  attempts 
to  do  this  are  what  we  call  the  theology  of 
the  Christian  Church,  and  according  as  the 
attempt  succeeds  or  fails,  the  theology  may 
be  described  as  alive  or  dead.  The  great 
need  of  the  present  time  is  not  a  new 
theology,  in  the  sense  of  one  different  from 
any  of  those  that  have  been,  or  a  return  to 
one  or  other  of  these  old  theologies,  but 
rather  a  living  theology — one,  that  is,  which 
gives  actual  and  intelligible  expression  to 
the  Christian  thought  and  experience  of  the 
hour.  The  present  unrest  is  caused  by  the 
clashing  of  confused  efforts  to  obtain  this 
end  in  Churches  which  are  mostly  organised 
on  the  basis  of  fixed  intellectual  forms. 

Granting,  then,  for  the  moment  that  some 
adaptation  in  the  intellectual  forms  of  faith 


256  THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  FAITH 


is  necessary  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  age, 
the  question  at  once  arises  as  to  whether 
there  are  any  fixed  data  which  will  remain 
unaffected  in  the  process.  Here  a  very  clear 
understanding  becomes  necessary.  The  two 
main  foci  of  Christian  thought  are  the 
historical  Person  of  Jesus  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  experience  engendered  by  faith  in 
Him  on  the  other.  These  must  not  be  con¬ 
fused,  and  they  must  not  be  separated.  We 
need  not  be  afraid  of  the  appeal  to  history. 
The  criticism  which  enables  us  to  go  behind 
our  documents  in  the  New  Testament  has 
unveiled  for  us  there  a  portrait  of  Jesus  which 
is  not  that  of  a  man  like  ourselves,  but  of  One 
who,  even  for  the  men  of  His  day,  has  the 
religious  value  of  God,  and  is  approached 
with  a  faith  and  reverence  greater  than  men 
are  wont  to  give  to  any  teacher  of  religion 
or  to  any  prophet  of  the  Lord.  This  historic 
Divine  Person  is  the  ultimate  datum  of  our 
religion  and  is  that  which  makes  our  re¬ 
ligion  Christian.  His  consciousness  of  a 
unique  relationship  to  God  upon  the  one 


THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  FAITH  257 


hand  and  to  man  upon  the  other  is  a  primal 
fact  which  no  historical  interpretations  have 
been  able  to  conceal.  As  we  build  on  this 
we  build  on  the  only  foundation  which  can  be 
called  Christian.  But  even  when  this  found¬ 
ation  has  been  securely  laid,  the  buildings 
erected  upon  it  in  the  course  of  ages  have 
been  widely  different.  Wood,  hay,  and 
stubble  have  been  freely  used  as  material, 
and  much  of  it  has  failed  to  stand  the  test 
which  time  has  applied.  There  is  need 
for  very  careful  distinction  between  the 
fact  of  Christ  given  in  the  New  Testament 
and  those  dogmatic  interpretations  of  the 
fact  which  have  been  too  often  accepted 
as  standards  by  the  Christian  Church.  The 
Christian  position  is  determined  in  the 
long-run  by  the  attitude  of  the  soul  towards 
Jesus  Christ,  and  not  by  acceptance  of  any 
of  the  intellectual  interpretations  of  Him 
which  have  been  from  time  to  time  in  vogue. 
A  man  may  accept  every  position  of  ortho¬ 
doxy  in  regard  to  Jesus  Christ,  and  yet  be 

very  far  from  the  confession,  “  My  Lord  and 

17 


258  THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  FAITH 


my  God.”  On  the  other  hand,  a  man  may 
find  in  Jesus  Christ  his  Lord  and  Saviour, 
and  may  make  Him  44  the  Master-Light  of 
all  his  seeing,”  and  at  the  same  time  be 
unable  to  accept  many  of  the  dogmas  which 
the  Church  has  counted  necessary  to  salva¬ 
tion.  Given  the  evangelic  deposit  of  the 
Divine  work  and  Person  of  Jesus  Christ,  a 
large  liberty  of  interpretation  must  be  con¬ 
ceded. 

But  it  is  here  that  the  difficulties  of  the 
organised  Churches  begin.  Christian  theo¬ 
logy  at  the  present  time  is  the  result  of  a 
long  and  varied  conflict.  It  is  like  one  of 
those  buildings  which  have  grown  up,  not 
according  to  any  preconceived  plan,  but  by 
a  series  of  additions  and  alterations,  deter¬ 
mined  by  the  necessities  of  the  hour.  The 
heresies  of  the  Church  for  the  time  being 
have  again  and  again  determined  the  process 
of  theological  reconstruction.  The  historic 
creeds  are  monuments  of  the  victory  of  this 
party  or  of  that  over  the  assailants  of 
the  faith  in  their  day.  Under  these  circum- 


THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  FAITH  259 

stances  they  suffer  necessarily,  now  from 
over-emphasis,  and  now  from  under-state¬ 
ment.  They  are  often  temporary  and  acci¬ 
dental  in  form,  and  while  they  usefully 
served  the  necessities  of  their  time,  they 
cannot  without  much  straining  be  made  to 
fit  the  intellectual  needs  of  the  Church  for  all 
time.  On  the  basis  of  such  an  organisation 
as  they  present  the  thought  of  the  Church 
becomes  rigid  where  it  ought  to  be  elastic, 
and  dead  and  incapable  of  growth  where 
it  ought  to  be  most  alive.  The  assumption 
that  the  Christian  facts  involve  the  whole 
superstructure  of  doctrine  which  has  been 
built  upon  them,  form  and  substance  alike,  is 
responsible  for  most  of  our  present  troubles. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  trouble  cannot  be 
averted  by  any  return  to  the  bare  facts  of 
the  Christian  revelation  which  ignores  the 
results  of  development  through  the  ages.  The 
effort  to  free  Christianity  from  all  dogmatic 
accretions  has  a  tempting  sound,  but  it  is 
utterly  futile  in  practice.  There  is  some¬ 
thing  to  be  said  for  it  only  when  it  is  con- 


260  THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  FAITH 

fined  to  protesting  against  the  tendency 
to  make  all  dogma  a  test  of  Christian  truth. 
The  developmental  process  involves  the 
assumption  that  that  which  is  given  in 
primitive  Christianity  is  capable  of  growth 
and  expansion,  a  germ  or  seed  of  truth  rather 
than  the  full-orbed  idea.  The  real  problem 
of  to-day  is  not  how  the  modern  Church  may 
be  made  to  accept  all  the  thought  of  the 
past,  but  how  it  may  so  use  this  as  the  better 
to  enable  it  to  interpret  the  Christian  Gospel 
and  the  Person  of  the  Christ  in  terms  which 
the  present  age  can  understand. 

Slowly  the  Bible  of  the  race  is  writ, 

And  not  on  paper  leaves  nor  leaves  of  stone  ; 
Each  age,  each  kindred,  adds  a  verse  to  it, 
Texts  of  despair,  or  hope,  or  joy,  or  moan. 

In  the  process  of  theological  reconstruc¬ 
tion  a  necessary  distinction  must  be  drawn 
between  Churches  and  individuals.  It  is 
comparatively  easy  for  the  individual  to 
distinguish  between  faith  in  Christ  and 
doctrines  about  Christ.  His  relation  to 


THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  FAITH  261 

Jesus  Christ  is  to  him  the  source  of  life  and 
light,  and  so  long  as  it  is  maintained  he  is  not 
supremely  concerned  with  the  intellectual 
explanations  which  may  be  given  to  it. 
Men  may  live  healthy  lives  in  entire  igno¬ 
rance  of  biology  or  of  physiology.  In  the 
same  way  a  knowledge  of  theology  is  not 
necessary  for  the  life  of  the  soul.  With  the 
Church,  however,  things  are  different.  Some 
form  of  theology  or  of  doctrinal  statement 
is  necessary,  if  not  to  the  life,  at  least  to  the 
organisation  of  the  Church.  And  Churches, 
as  a  rule,  are  slow  to  relate  their  intellectual 
exposition  of  the  truth  by  which  they  live 
to  the  life  itself.  Hence  a  natural  and  ever- 
widening  gulf  between  the  intellectual  posi¬ 
tion  of  the  Churches  and  that  of  the  indi¬ 
viduals  who  compose  them.  The  individual 
easily  readjusts  himself  to  new  conditions  ; 
the  Church  is  slow  to  move  and  difficult  to 
persuade.  This  fact,  however,  makes  it 
the  more  necessary  that  Churches  should 
be  freed  from  anything  in  the  nature  of  an 
intellectual  bondage.  Opinion  in  this  direc- 


262  THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  FAITH 

tion  is,  no  doubt,  ripening  fast,  and  while  in 
one  way  it  seems  to  increase  the  present 
condition  of  unrest,  in  another  it  is  showing 
us  the  surest  mode  of  escape  from  it.  Even 
in  Churches  that  have  long  been  bound  to 
a  form  of  creed  men  chafe  at  the  restriction, 
and  seek  to  escape  from  it  by  all  manner  of 
subterfuges  and  evasions,  the  moral  effect 
of  which  is  disastrous  in  the  extreme.  It  is 
hardly  too  much  to  say  that  no  branch  of  the 
Protestant  Christian  Church  at  the  present 
time  would  attempt  to  express  its  beliefs 
in  any  form  of  words  which  was  to  be  made 
binding  on  the  consciences  of  men.  Ex¬ 
planatory  and  declaratory  statements  of 
creed  would  be  held  allowable  only  as  they 
must  never  be  made  a  burden  on  tender 
consciences. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten,  however,  that 
religion  means  life  as  well  as  faith,  and 
that  the  intellectual  interpretation  of  it 
cannot  be  kept  apart  from  its  practical 
expression.  The  theology  by  which  a  man 
lives  may  be  a  very  different  thing  from 


THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  FAITH  263 


the  theology  which  he  expresses  in  his 
creed.  Creed  and  conduct  are,  no  doubt, 
very  closely  allied,  but  it  is  conduct  that 
is  for  the  most  part  the  outcome  of  creed. 
In  other  words,  a  man  only  believes  what 
he  practises.  Therefore  the  study  of 
religious  practice,  of  experience,  of  the  life 
of  God  in  the  soul  of  a  man,  is  as  necessary 
and  as  useful  as  the  study  of  the  intellectual 
expression  of  the  faith.  The  modern  ten¬ 
dency  to  lay  stress  on  the  experimental 
and  psychological  in  religion  is  a  sign  of 
the  times,  and  is  part  of  a  healthy  reaction 
against  the  over- dogmatism  of  the  past. 
It  is  certainly  a  factor  of  the  utmost  im¬ 
portance  in  every  attempt  to  deal  with 
the  present  distress.  The  great  words  of 
Jesus  Christ,  44  He  that  willeth  to  do  His 
will  shall  know  of  the  teaching,”  contain 
a  rule  of  life  and  faith  which  the  Christian 
Church  would  do  well  to  remember  and 
obey.  In  many  evangelical  circles  there 
is  an  altogether  unfounded  suspicion  of 
the  ethical  implications  of  the  Christian 


264  THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  FAITH 


Gospel.  But  in  a  time  of  theological  doubt 
and  transition  these  become  of  the  utmost 
value  and  afford  the  surest  anchorage  for 
the  soul.  The  history  of  the  Church  supplies 
abundant  and  melancholy  evidence  of  the 
fact  that  no  exaction  of  rigid  standards 
of  orthodoxy  will  secure  a  high  ideal  of 
Christian  life.  It  is  by  their  fruits  rather 
than  by  their  thoughts  that  Christians  are 
best  known  and  judged.  No  one  will  accuse 
John  Wesley  of  being  indifferent  to  doctrinal 
forms  or  careless  of  orthodoxy,  yet  it  is 
worth  remembering  that  as  long  ago  as 
1792  he  couched  his  definition  of  a  Metho¬ 
dist,  and  therefore  presumably  of  a  Christian, 
in  the  following  terms  :  “  The  distinguishing 
marks  of  a  Methodist  are  not  his  opinions 
of  any  sort.  His  assenting  to  this  or  that 
scheme  of  religion,  his  embracing  any  par¬ 
ticular  set  of  notions,  his  espousing  the 
judgment  of  one  man  or  another,  are  all 
quite  wide  of  the  point.  ...  Is  thy  heart 
right  as  my  heart  is  with  thine  ?  I  ask 
no  further  question.  Dost  thou  love  and 


THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  FAITH  265 


serve  God  ?  It  is  enough.  I  give  thee 
the  right  hand  of  fellowship.” 

Here  surely  is  the  bold  and  Christian 
line  for  our  Churches  to  take  in  the  present 
crisis.  The  best  answer  to  those  who  would 
win  us  away  from  faith  in  the  full  Gospel 
of  God’s  grace  in  Jesus  Christ  is  to  set 
forth  the  power  of  that  Gospel  in  the 
changed  and  fruitful  lives  of  our  Church 
members.  The  business  of  the  Church  is 
not  so  much  to  state  the  doctrine  of  God 
our  Saviour  as  to  adorn  it,  and  the  best 
weapons  of  her  warfare  are  not  the  articles 
of  a  creed,  but  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit. 
So  long  as  her  faith  works  by  44  love,  joy, 
peace,  long-suffering,  gentleness,  goodness, 
faith,  meekness,  temperance  ”  she  has  evi¬ 
dences  which  none  can  gainsay  and  of 
which  she  need  never  be  ashamed. 

Meanwhile  the  work  of  theological  re¬ 
construction  must  go  steadily  on.  The 
deeper  the  spiritual  life  of  the  Churches 
the  more  eager  will  they  be  to  find  an 
intellectual  expression  for  it  in  terms  in- 


266  THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  FAITH 


telligible  to  the  thought  of  the  age.  We 
must  at  all  costs,  however,  avoid  the  fallacy 
of  confounding  religion  with  theology,  which 
is  much  as  though  a  man  were  to  confound 
biology  with  life.  No  doubt  biological 
science  can  do  a  great  deal  to  make  life 
more  tolerable  and  more  secure,  but  no 
man  need  pass  an  examination  in  it  before 
he  can  be  said  to  live.  So  a  sane  and 
reasonable  theology  can  do  a  great  deal 
for  religion,  though  it  cannot  make  religious 
men.  But  in  commending  our  religion  to 
the  world  it  is  very  necessary  that  we 
should  use  the  terms  of  current  thought 
and  life,  always  with  the  understanding 
that  such  terms  are  never  final.  The  first 
and  central  duty  of  the  Christian  Church 
is  to  witness  to  the  great  Christian  facts, 
man’s  guilt  and  God’s  grace  and  redemption 
in  Jesus  Christ,  and  to  live  the  life.  But 
next  in  order,  both  of  importance  and 
urgency,  is  to  commend  this  Gospel  to 
the  world  in  intelligible  terms.  But  this 
is  not  done  if  the  facts  are  eviscerated  of 


THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  FAITH  267 


all  spiritual  content  in  the  process,  or  if 
they  are  pared  down  to  suit  the  temper 
of  a  trifling  and  materialistic  age.  The 
Christian  teacher  is  a  prophet  of  God.  He 
speaks  to  his  time,  as  it  were,  from  a  vantage- 

point  above  it.  He  has  learnt  his  lesson 

% 

not  amid  the  wrangling  of  the  schools, 
but  in  the  secret  place  of  the  Most  High. 
Though  he  may  come  down  to  the  market¬ 
place  and  speak  in  the  language  of  the 
people,  he  can  never  lose  the  sense  of 
awe  and  of  inadequacy,  or  descend  to  the 
commonplace.  To  interpret  the  ways  of 
God  to  men  requires  intellectual  equipment, 
as  well  as  spiritual  sense.  We  Christians 
believe  in  the  Holy  Spirit.  We  believe 
that  God  hath  never  left  Himself  without 
witness,  and  that  He  is  speaking  to  the 
age  in  which  we  live.  We  believe,  with 
Augustine,  that  44  whatever  is  true,  by 
whomsoever  it  is  spoken,  proceeds  from 
the  Spirit  of  God.”  If,  therefore,  we  would 
become  the  mouthpieces  of  His  word,  we 
must  first  listen,  and  have  the  tongue  of 


268  THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  FAITH 


them  that  are  taught.  Therefore,  in  all 
the  seething  thought  of  the  age  we  can 
count  nothing  common  or  unclean.  The 
wonderful  discoveries  of  science,  the  vast 
hypothesis  of  evolution,  the  stricter  methods 
of  historical  and  literary  criticism,  the  study 
of  comparative  religions,  the  rise  of  a  new 
philosophy,  all  these  are  to  us,  not  the 
works  of  the  devil,  but  messages  wherein 
he  who  will  may  catch  the  authentic  voice 
of  God.  There  is  nothing  here  which  can 
disturb  a  living  Christian  experience,  or 
destroy  the  Christian  facts  ;  but  there  is 
much  here  to  modify  our  intellectual  ex¬ 
pression  of  that  experience,  and  our 
intellectual  interpretation  of  those  facts. 
The  process  which  this  involves  is  complex 
and  arduous  in  the  extreme,  but  it  is  one 
from  which  we  must  not  shrink.  Honestly 
and  fearlessly  followed  out  it  can  only 
bring  us  nearer  to  Him  who  is  the  truth. 
In  any  case,  it  means  a  revival  of  intellectual 
interest  in  the  Christian  faith,  and  such 
revival  has  often  been  a  condition  precedent 


THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  FAITH  269 


of  a  revival  of  religion  itself.  As  Dr.  Dale 
said  long  ago :  44 1  believe  that  in  all  the 
great  movements  of  religious  reform  that 
have  permanently  elevated  the  religious 
life  of  Christendom  there  has  been  a  renewal 
of  intellectual  interest  in  the  Christian 
revelation.  Some  forgotten  aspects  of  the 
Gospel  have  been  recovered  ;  the  theological 
definitions  which  had  for  a  generation  or 
two  been  a  sufficient  expression  of  the 
results  at  which  human  speculation  had 
arrived  concerning  the  great  facts  of  reve¬ 
lation  have  been  challenged  and  discredited, 
and  the  mind  of  the  Church  has  been 
brought  into  immediate  contact  with  the 
facts  themselves  ;  the  methods  which  have 
determined  the  construction  of  theological 
systems  have  become  obsolete,  and  the 
work  of  reconstruction  has  tasked  the  genius 
and  the  learning  of  the  leaders  of  Christian 
thought ;  the  central  principles  of  the 
Gospel  have  received  new  applications  to 
individual  conduct,  and  to  the  organisation 
of  social  life  :  in  all  these  ways  a  fresh 


270  THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  FAITH 

and  keen  intellectual  interest  has  been 
excited  in  Christian  truth,  and  the  in¬ 
tellectual  interest  has  deepened  moral  and 
spiritual  earnestness.”  These  are  wise  and 
weighty,  and  we  venture  to  believe  that 
they  will  prove  prophetic  words. 

If  the  process  of  theological  change  is 
to  become  a  help,  rather  than  a  hindrance, 
to  the  faith  of  the  Churches,  two  conditions 
must  be  observed.  The  first  of  these  is 
the  cultivation  of  a  spirit  of  sincerity,  and 
the  second  is  the  maintenance  of  the  good 
principle  of  toleration.  On  each  of  these 
a  word  needs  to  be  said. 

It  would  be  a  libel  on  our  Churches  and 
on  Christian  people  generally  to  charge 
them  with  being  consciously  insincere.  But 
to  set  up  standards  of  belief,  either  in 
substitution  for,  or  in  addition  to,  standards 
of  life  and  conduct  inevitably  leads  to  a 
certain  lack  of  frankness  in  utterance.  To 
make  orthodoxy  the  password  into  a  Christ¬ 
ian  community  is  to  put  a  heavy  strain  on 
tender  consciences.  The  mischief  is  clearly 


THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  FAITH  271 

seen  in  those  creed-bound  Churches  where 
men  are  accustomed  to  give  a  tacit  and 
general  assent,  with  mental  reservations, 
to  propositions  which  they  cannot  candidly 
endorse.  The  thing  is  so  common  that  the 
real  evil  of  it  is  apt  to  be  obscured.  But 
the  intellectual  conscience  of  a  Christian  is 
far  too  delicate  a  thing  to  be  played  with 
in  this  way.  Many  Churches  have  wisely 
refused  to  make  a  creed  44  a  picklock  to  a 
place,”  but  they  have  not  successful] v 
evaded  the  difficulty  in  question.  There 
are  many  men  who  feel  themselves  hampered 
by  the  intellectual  limitations  of  the  Churches 
in  delivering  their  message.  There  is  an 
impression  abroad,  whether  warranted  or 
not,  that  the  Churches  do  not  want  to 
hear  the  plain  truth,  either  as  regards  the 
intellectual  interpretation  of  the  Gospel  or 
as  regards  its  moral  implications.  In  some 
respects  the  latter  is  perhaps  a  more  serious 
hindrance  than  the  former.  And  the  feeling 
indicated  is  unquestionably  responsible  for 
the  lack  of  the  more  cultured  and  intelligent 


272  THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  FAITH 


young  men  among  candidates  for  the  pulpit 
in  these  days.  In  name  at  least  some 
Churches  have  always  stood  for  a  free 
pulpit,  but  the  reality  is  sometimes  sadly 
to  seek.  We  are  fully  aware  what  the  term 
c  c  a  free  pulpit  ’  ’  should  mean .  W e  realise  that 
it  is  a  pulpit  we  are  concerned  with,  and 
not  a  class-room  or  a  platform.  A  pulpit 
means  preaching,  and  preaching  means  a 
Gospel.  But  given  the  Gospel,  given  the 
evangelical  message,  our  claim  is  that  a 
man  has  not  only  a  right,  but  a  duty,  to 
declare  it  in  the  terms  in  which  it  has 
found  his  own  soul,  and  under  which  God 
has  revealed  it  to  him.  This  must  not 
only  be  done  with  entire  frankness  on  his 
part,  but  in  a  spirit  of  the  humblest 
reverence,  and  with  the  tender est  regard 
for  those  who  sit  at  his  feet.  The  pathway 
of  theological  advance  is  strewn  with  wreck¬ 
age  caused  by  the  cruel  iconoclasm  and 
arrogant  unwisdom  of  some  of  those  who 
have  claimed  to  be  pioneers.  A  free  pulpit 
does  not  mean  freedom  to  say  what  one 


THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  FAITH  273 

likes,  and  as  one  likes.  It  means  rather 
liberty  to  tell  God’s  truth  in  God’s  way. 
Given  an  observance  of  the  Christian  rule 
of  charity,  and  a  like  respect  for  others’ 
consciences  as  for  one’s  own,  and  our 
Churches  would  be  ready  and  anxious  to 
receive  the  frankest  possible  exposition  of 
the  Gospel  of  the  grace  of  God  in  the  light 
of  the  new  knowledge  and  the  new  in¬ 
tellectual  standpoint  of  to-day.  But  the 
task  is  no  easy  one.  Only  those  can 
successiully  attempt  it  who  by  their  moral 
and  spiritual  force  have  gained  the  con¬ 
fidence  of  the  Churches,  and  whose  prolonged 
and  deep  study  of  the  problems  involved 
has  given  them  the  right  to  speak. 

But  a  further  question  remains.  Even 
in  these  days  of  liberty  our  attitude  towards 
those  who  differ  from  us,  or  who  depart 
from  the  accepted  standards  on  theological 
questions,  leaves  something  to  be  desired. 
It  is  unfortunate  that  it  should  not  be 
possible  to  discuss  differences  of  view  in 
matters  of  religion  without  acrimony  and 

18 


274  THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  FAITH 

bitterness.  This  is  sometimes  excused  as 
being  testimony  to  the  vast  importance  of 
the  issues  involved.  It  is  really  unbelief. 
And  among  Christians  no  excuse  can  justify 
such  departures  from  the  rule  of  charity. 
Freedom  without  toleration  is  not  a  blessing, 
but  a  curse.  There  are  Churches  that  were 
cradled  in  toleration.  Can  they  still  say 
with  Cromwell,  66  In  things  of  the  mind  we 
look  for  no  compulsion  but  that  of  light 
and  reason,”  and  with  Owen,  “  I  believe 
that  upon  search  it  will  appear  that  error 
hath  not  been  advanced  by  anything  in 
the  world  so  much  as  by  usurping  a  power 
for  its  suppression”?  We  are  not  likely 
at  this  time  of  day  to  revive  any  of  the  old 
material  weapons  of  orthodoxy,  but  we 
are  in  danger  of  forgetting  that  it  is  possible 
even  in  Free  Churches  to  create  an  atmo¬ 
sphere  which  may  become  a  weapon  of 
persecution  and  a  means  of  suppressing 
the  truth.  Tares  will  alwavs  be  found 
among  the  wheat,  and  the  attempt  to  root 
them  up  prematurely  is  always  perilous. 


THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  FAITH  275 


6 4  Let  both  grow  together  until  the  harvest.” 
Toleration  springs  not  out  of  indifference 
to  the  truth,  as  is  sometimes  said,  but  out 
of  the  belief  that  God’s  truth  is  too  big  a 
thing  to  be  wholly  expressed  in  any  of 
our  formulas. 

In  conclusion,  we  see  no  reason  for  panic 
or  despair.  The  faith  of  the  Churches  is  still 
fundamentally  sound.  In  some  quarters  it 
may  find  forms  of  expression  for  itself  against 
which  every  instinct  in  us  rebels,  but  we 
may  easily  attach  to  these  things  too  much 
importance.  The  duty  of  the  moment  is  not 
to  suppress  any  of  the  varied  manifestations 
of  the  intellectual  ferment  of  our  day,  but 
rather  to  return  to  the  Gospel  of  the  grace 
of  God  in  Jesus  Christ,  to  preach  it  in  all 
its  fullness,  to  live  it  out  in  our  own  ex¬ 
perience,  and  to  apply  it  to  the  needs  of 
the  world.  Only  by  such  experimental 
process  shall  we  be  able  to  discover  that 
the  foundation  of  God  standeth  sure.  The 
spirit  that  should  animate  us  in  this  should 
be  that  of  the  great  father  in  the  faith, 


276  THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  FAITH 


John  Owen,  expressed  in  his  famous  apos¬ 
trophe,  “  Blessed  Jesus  !  we  can  add  nothing 
to  Thee,  nothing  to  Thy  glory  ;  but  it  is 
a  joy  of  heart  to  us  that  Thou  art  what 
Thou  art,  that  Thou  art  so  gloriously 
exalted  at  the  right  hand  of  God.  And 
we  do  long  more  fully  and  clearly  to  behold 
that  glory  according  to  Thy  prayer  and 
promise.” 


i 


INDEX 


Acts  of  the  Apostles,  50,  78 
Alexandrian  philosophy,  109 
Anselm,  235 
Antaeus,  32 

Apocalypse,  The,  121  ff. 
Apocalyptic  literature,  125 
Apostles’  Creed,  173 
Aramaic,  254 
Arian  controversy,  175  ff. 
Arius,  177,  178 
Art,  Christ  in,  22 
Assumption  of  Moses,  126 
Athanasian  Creed,  183  ff. 
Athanasius,  177^  178 
Atonement,  84,  85 
Augustine,  St.,  24,  267 
Authority  of  Jesus,  149,  162 
Authorship  of  St.  John,  103  ff. 
—  of  the  Apocalpyse,  122  ff. 

Back  to  Christ,  231 
Baptism,  170 
Baptismal  formulas,  169 
Belief  in  Christ,  115,  192 
Boanerges,  122 
Bousset,  141,  152 
Bread  of  life,  96,  111,  148 
Brotherhood,  242 
Buddha,  218 
Burkitt,  50,  97 
Burn  on  Creeds,  192 

Calvin,  206,  208 
Character  of  Jesus,  54 


Charles,  Dr.,  162 
Christ  and  the  Church,  63 

—  as  Judge,  160  ff. 

—  as  King,  137 

—  as  living,  89,  230 

—  as  Messiah,  150  ff. 

—  as  Priest,  137 

—  as  Prophet,  136 

—  as  Son  of  man,  149 

—  as  the  Truth,  110 

—  authority  of,  149,  162 

—  belief  in,  115,  192 
• —  character  of,  54 

—  claims  of,  162 

—  consciousness  of,  164 

—  death  of,  157 

• —  historic  interpretation  of  , 
228,  229 

—  humanity  of,  172,  209 

—  in  art,  22 

—  in  modern  theology,  114 

■ —  in  the  Apocalypse,  131,  etc. 

—  of  dogma,  13,  23 

—  of  the  Creeds,  169  ff. 

—  of  to-day,  225  ff. 

—  personality  of,  19,  24,  40, 
52,  186 

—  resurrection  of,  58 

—  sinlessness  of,  56 

—  teaching  of,  146,  etc. 

—  witness  to,  115,  116 
Christology,  25,  108,  135,  170, 

183 

City  of  God,  138 


278 


INDEX 


Coleridge,  64 
Consciousness  of  Paul,  83 
Constantine,  178 
Corinthians,  First  Epistle  to, 
77 

Council  of  Chalcedon,  182 

—  of  Constantinople,  180 

—  of  Nicaea,  178 

Creeds  and  the  Church,  27 1 
Cromwell,  274 
Cross  of  Christ,  84 

Dale,  Dr.,  230,  269 
Dalman,  150 
Damascus,  79,  86 
Date  of  Apocalypse,  125 

—  of  Gospels,  45 
David,  son  of,  151 
Death  of  Jesus,  157 
Denney,  Dr.,  75,  91,  192 
Development,  doctrine  of,  12, 

252 

Didache,  170 

Doctrine  and  development,  23, 
189 

—  formation  of,  186 
Dogma,  23,  200 

Early  church  history,  166 
Emerson,  34 
Enoch,  Book  of,  126 
Environment,  253 
Epistles  of  John,  97 
Eschatology,  151,  160 
Esdras,  Book  of,  126 
Essence,  179 

Ethical  appeal  of  Christ,  234  ff. 

—  Gospel,  237 
Eusebius  of  Caesarea,  179 
Evangelists,  57 
Evolution,  12,  252 
Experience  in  religion, T263 


Experience  of  Paul,  85 
Expositor,  159,  162 

Fact  of  Christ,  55,  228,  244 
Fairbairn,  Dr.,  114,  158 
Faith  in  Christ,  116,  117,  175 
Fichte,  7 

Foundation  of  faith,  257 
Fundamental  truths  of  Chris¬ 
tianity,  245 

Gardner,  Prof.,  246 
God,  doctrine  of,  25 

—  in  Christ,  218 
Good  Shepherd,  96,  113 
Gospel  of  Matthew,  48 

—  of  Mark,  47 

—  of  Luke,  49 

—  of  John,  95,  etc. 

—  of  Paul,  81 

Gospels,  the  Synoptic,  39,  51, 
90,  99 

Gwatkin,  Prof.,  165,  180 

Harnack,  7,  14,  24,  53,  71,  149, 
193 

Hatch,  Edwin,  14,  176 
Hibbert  Lecture,  177 
Historic  Christ,  8 
Historical  criticism,  227 
Homoiousios,  179 
Homoousios,  179 
Humanity  of  Jesus,  51,  106, 
210 

Hymenaeus  of  Jerusalem,  176 

Ideal  Christ,  40,  73 
Immortality,  140 
Impressions  of  Jesus,  147 
Incarnation,  18,  150 
Institution  of  Lord’s  Supper, 
159 


INDEX 


279 


James,  Professor,  15 
Jerusalem,  104 
Jesus  and  Paul,  92 

—  and  the  Gospel,  75,  91 

—  humanity  of,  51,  106,  210 

—  of  history,  40 

—  portrait  of,  in  the  Gospels, 
60,  61 

—  self-consciousness  of,  146  ff. 

—  words  of,  163 

Jewish  element  in  Apocalypse, 
126,  127 

John  and  the  Synoptists,  99, 
100 

—  Christology  of,  108  ff. 

—  Gospel  of,  95,  etc. 

—  the  Apostle,  103 

—  the  Baptist,  155 

—  the  Presbyter,  104,  124 
Judge,  Christ  as,  160  ff. 
Justification,  216 

Kant,  7 

King,  Christ  as,  187 
Kingdom  of  God,  153  ff. 
Knowledge  of  Christ,  212 

Law,  86 

Lazarus,  raising  of,  100 
Lessing,  7 
Letters  of  Paul,  72 

—  to  the  Seven  Churches,  129 
Life  through  Christ,  233 
Light  of  the  World,  96,  148 
Living  Christ,  88 

Logia,  the,  46 
Logos,  108,  109 
Loisy,  Father,  9,  10 
Lord’s  Supper,  101,  159 
Love,  77,  242 
Luke,  Gospel  of,  46,  49 
Luther,  86,  92,  205  ff. 


Man  of  Galilee,  73 
Mark,  St.,  45,  47 
Matthew,  St.,  48 
Matthews,  Prof.  Shailer,  31 
Melanchthon,  206,  216 
Messiah,  The,  150  ff. 

Messianic  ideas,  80,  105 
Methodist,  264 
Meyer,  Dr.  Arnold,  92 
Middle  Ages,  203  ff. 

Milton,  lives  of,  62 
Miracles,  57 

Missionary  work  of  the  Church, 
138 

Mohammed,  218 
Moses,  69,  218 
Myth,  13 

Napoleon,  128,  229 
Nicaea,  178 
Nicene  Creed,  175 
Nicodemus,  96 

Old  Testament,  26 
Ousia,  179 

Owen,  John,  274,  276 

Parables  of  the  Kingdom,  155 
Patrick,  Hymn  of,  195 
Paul  of  Samosata,  176 
—  St.,  69,  etc. 

Perean  narrative,  46 
Persecutions,  130 
Person  of  Christ,  3,  19,  24,  34, 
40,  57,  186,  229 
Peter,  St.,  47 
Philo,  109 

Philosophical  schools,  187 
Plato,  29 
Pragmatism,  15 
Presbyter,  104,  124, 

Progress,  252 


280 


INDEX 


Quelle,  46 

Quicunque  Vult,  183 

Rashdall,  Dr.,  22 
Read,  Prof.  Carveth,  16 
Reformation,  205  ff. 

—  Church  of  the,  199  ff. 
Reformed  doctrine,  217 
Reformers,  206,  207 
Religion  and  theology,  266 
Renaissance,  205 
Resurrection,  58 
Revelation,  Book  of,  122 

—  the  Christian,  259 
Ritschl,  8 

Roman  Empire,  76,  129 

Salmond,  Dr.,  61 
Sanday,  Prof.,  150 
Santa  Scala,  214 
Saviour  of  the  world,  84,  212 
Schoolmen,  the,  207 
Schultz,  Hermann,  117 
Second  Coming,  107 
Seeberg,  Prof.,  245 
Self-consciousness  of  Jesus, 
146  ff. 

Semitic  faiths,  28 
Shepherd,  the  Good,  96,  113 
Sin,  235 

Sinlessness  of  Jesus,  56 
Social  Gospel,  239 
Son  of  David,  151 

—  of  God,  81 
; —  of  man,  149 


Son  of  Thunder,  122,  130 
Subordination  of  the  Son,  177 
Substance,  208 

Synoptic  Gospels,  39  ff.,  90,  99 
Swete,  Prof.,  123,  127 

Teaching  of  Arius,  178 

—  of  Christ,  11,  145  ff. 
Temptation,  147,  210 
Tennyson,  232 

Theologicalreconstruction,260, 

266 

Thunder,  Son  of,  122,  130 
Toleration,  274 
Trinity,  207 
Truth,  Christ  as,  110 
Tyrrell,  Father,  9 

Vine  and  the  branches,  96,  113 
Virgin  birth,  19 
Vision  of  Paul,  79 
Visions  of  Revelation,  128 
Von  Soden,  104 

Water  of  Life,  121 
Wellhausen,  45 
Wernle,  46 
Wesley,  John,  264 
Witness  of  Paul,  75 

—  to  Christ,  115,  116 
Word,  The,  108,  109 
Words  of  Jesus,  163 

Zebedee,  122 
Zwingli,  92 


Printed  by  Hazell,  Watson  &  Viney,  Ld.,  London  and  Aylesbury. 


^  'm  T,^g0*°^ica*  Seminary-Speer  Library 


1  1012  01146  1003 


